


Horrortale

by cypherd



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 01:18:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8690908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cypherd/pseuds/cypherd
Summary: The concept is based largely on sour-apple-studios ‘ horrortale fangame and art and I have nothing to do with the conception of the idea, I’m just playing in the sandbox. Undertale of course is the brainchild of Toby Fox. This story contains strong language, guts and gore, cannibalism, suicide, murder, vomiting, fighting, burning, all manner of adult fears and child death and a lot of blood, sweat and tears - much of it my own.I do have a beta for this but they're busy so I will post this and let there be editing when there is time.





	

Aliza would be forced to deny it if you asked her, but privately, she was sure she was cursed. The orphanage wasn’t a bad place to grow up, by any means; the children were fed, given an education and Miss Louisa and Mr. Moore and all the other teachers were very kind, if somewhat strict. The food wasn’t bad and as long as you did your homework and minded your manners you had precious little to worry about. Nonetheless, what every ward of the place really wanted was to find a home; to be chosen by a family. It was mostly the youngest children; the babies and the toddlers that had the best chances. Usually the older children who got picked had a sibling that age whom potential parents refused to split up.

But Aliza had been there since she was an infant, a toddler, a child…a tween, (come on now…) and was presently pushing 16.

There had been one other child who likewise had been bypassed; her best friend. A young ward who went by Frisk; apparently the name left with them by whomever had dropped them off. In a basket on the doorstep, cliche though it was. They were nearly the same age, with Aliza the older by not much more than a few months, give or take. They used to joke about being siblings, but there were of course differences. Frisk never believed themselves cursed (and if they had, they had kept it far more close to their chest than Aliza ever had). Aliza had been ready to play up her feminine features the second she saw dresses in a fashion magazine, and Frisk chose not to gender themselves. They both had the same shade of brown hair, almost the same length (though that had been more the orphanage’s idea than their own), were within centimetres of being the same height and had the same colour of eyes. The only place they truly showed any vast difference was that the duo clearly came from different racial heritages.

That was far from the most important point of order when becoming ‘siblings’ in a place such as the orphanage and the two were inseparable. If they’d not gotten along, life would have been a lot lonelier for both of them, given how much older they were than all of the other kids there.

Aliza thought she could handle it, bear her curse…until one day, Frisk just…disappeared.

The only evidence they’d been real at all was all their things. Binders, books, notebooks, everything from underwear to the pencil box was left behind. No note, no trail, no odd behaviour that teachers or fellow students could report.

When asked, Aliza had been only able to tell them; the teachers, the police, over and over all she knew. That Frisk had gone to bed saying they felt ill, and it was on Friday Night dinner when the staff would try to give the kids a treat - mac and cheese or pizza or hamburgers or some seasonal pie. It was cheap stuff, but pretty okay. Frisk practically lived for it, so if they were choosing to miss the event, Aliza figured they really must have been feeling off-colour. She told the authorities as much.

As the story continued, They had been asleep when she’d got back to the girl’s dormitories that night. Frisk had, despite their non-binary status had been gendered female by the staff when they had arrived as a baby, but despite their decisions to be ungendered, and the accommodations of the staff, it had been decided that they remain in the girls’ dorm. Well-meaning though they were, Aliza had always suspected that part of it might be that the two of them got to remain bunk mates, but it also made things a lot ‘easier’ for their caretakers. But yes, Frisk snored and she’d assured the police of that fact, plus she would have noticed if they had tried to fake a lump in the bed. How stupid did they think she was!?

Nonetheless, Aliza had seen Frisk asleep in the bottom bunk when she’d come in from study hall and free time. She’d woken up in the morning to find the bed made and Frisk already gone. She expected to find them in the dining hall having missed dinner last night. When she hadn’t, she asked Miss Louisa. When Miss Louisa didn’t know either, the matron had gone to the Nurse’s station. When still no Frisk had turned up, the whispers and disruptions to class time started.

By the end of the day, everyone knew that Frisk had gone missing.

They’d searched for what to Aliza felt like both an eternity and not long enough. The children had been asked to inspect around the building: the classrooms and cupboards and furnace room and-did-someone-check-the-crawl-space-behind-the-art-closet-where-Jimmy-hid-for-a-whole-day?

There were whispers that the adults had reportedly searched up Mt. Ebott and Aliza, whose bed was close to the window, actually thought they were true. There was what looked like torch beams flashing by the slope a few nights in a row as she read quietly in the dark, hoping that in the morning, Frisk would be back.

She glanced into the made-up bottom bunk, wiping hair from her eyes and gazing at the set-out pile of school things resting just by the pillow. She’d half expected her to find them naked for a prank. After all, Frisk had been a sibling, a roommate, a best friend and she knew everything about them… naked prank. Clearly. Each student owned two sets of school clothes, a week and a half’s worth of unremarkable but properly fitted underthings, and the only distinguishing characteristics; a small pile of well mended and worn hand-me-downs selected from charity shop racks and donations to the local church rummage sale that the staff had picked through first to discard the filthy slogans and sassy sayings, or things that were too destroyed to wear in even the most casually polite company. None of the other girls in the dorm mentioned anything missing, but the clothes were important to Aliza anyway, as it was proof that her friend had been there at all…but it also seemed to be a fairly important clue that wherever Frisk had gone…they had no intention of coming back.

Otherwise she would have blamed the curse.

The police, meantime were left baffled. No sign of forced entry, or a struggle, or anyone suspicious near the campus save for elderly Bernie the Groundskeeper and the poor man’s home had been searched, monitored and put under strict surveillance, until he finally quit out of consternation. Thankfully, Bernie was swiftly deemed innocent and the orphanage saw fit to hire Ms. Chau to replace him, who was pretty nice, but honestly the thing Aliza liked best about her was that they didn’t have to pick extra pick-up chores out of a hat once a week anymore.

Still, some things had really changed. Gym class was indefinitely cancelled. Recess was held inside. Students, even the older ones had to go to the bathroom in pairs or with a teacher in tow.

And of course, the curse had made sure Aliza had it the hardest; she was either stuck with the next oldest girl in the school, Frannie who was twelve and still picked her nose so much she got at least a nosebleed a day and had to go to the bathroom just as much for that as she did actually, well…needing to go to the bathroom. If not her, then she was subject to Mme Dubois who clacked around in her heels outside the stall doors and cleared her throat like she had the world’s worst cold the second you sat down. As if anyone could actually pee that fast!

The worst of it, was she could have dealt with gross old Madame Dubois or Frannie’s filthy habits if she’d just had Frisk by her side. 

The funny thing was that for a girl who believed in curses, the concept of monsters barely crossed her mind.

It would.

***

Aliza had read the news. She’d been to the public library where the older students were allowed bouts of timed internet. She had gone through her ‘watching the news’ phase with Frisk when the rest of the children had been cleared off to bed and they as the sole oldest had been allowed to stay up an extra hour. She’d heard the ‘don’t get in the special van with the nice man who promises you candy’ speech the staff gave every year.

Yet she noticed that the teachers reminded her to use her library hours more wisely a lot more than they used to, especially when they caught her reading stories about kidnapped and missing children. She was mostly ready to give it up, anyway. All the stories she could find had something to do with families breaking up and one or the other parent taking the children with them which was kind of a moot point for both of them. Yes, sometimes, she read about crazy people who took children off the street ala the speech, but Frisk was one of the best judges of character Aliza knew. There was no way that they’d jumped into some stranger's’ car.

Miss Louisa had even suggested last time they were at the library for study hall that she go to the church the next time they were in town. It was clear what they wanted her to do.

Give up.

But her friend was alive. Her SIBLING was alive. She didn’t know HOW she knew, but she knew.

One week crept into two, crept into three. That sunday night, Aliza’s bunk bed was dismantled and for the first time in many years, she slept with no one snoring away underneath her.

The new bed was moved across the room and set up for 3 year old Wendy who cried every night for a week, but that was pretty standard for new kids.

It wasn’t Wendy’s fault, Aliza supposed, but new children were always a disruption. Especially the very young. It meant disrupted sleep from anything pulled out of a bubbling cauldron of childish fears and needs such as nightmares, bedwetting, homesickness, bathroom breaks, water breaks, and well, nightlights to purge the monsters that lurked in the shadows that seemed to be there for no one but the newest wards. Specifically..

The bright beam of light broke through Aliza’s eyelids and she rolled onto her side, trying to turn her face away from it. Ugh, really? Wendy had gone for weeks without needing Miss Louisa now…she was just starting to get herself back on a normal sleep schedule.

She rolled to face the opposite wall; and frowned. Had they turned the lights on? Unwillingly, she opened her eyes. The light wasn’t coming from above, it wasn’t coming from the window or the door…in fact, it seemed to be emanating from…under….her bed. . Glowing and red and…really, the only word she had for it was viscosus. It was…thick light.

She maneuvered out from under her covers and rocked back on her hands. Something told her not to just set her feet on the floor. She braced like she was trying to jump off a playground swing and landed with a soft thump. The landing caused her to teeter back a touch but she managed to get one leg under her to stumble awkwardly forward. Glancing around confirmed swiftly that the other girls slumbered on. A part of her mind noticed that it seemed strange, as she’d made quite an inordinate amount of noise already, but curiosity won the day. 

Scooting back, she got on her hands and knees to see under the bed, imagining she’d find a lost toy or, as was more likely something misplaced by one of the adults.

The space between the bed and floor was just large enough for Aliza to wriggle between. Had she been even the slightest bit wider she couldn’t have done it. Her bottom and shoulder blades and the shell of her ear all brushed the underside of the bed and the linoleum of the floor the entire way she inched along. It wasn’t until she reached the aperture in the floor that she had any space to move at all, peering over the lip of the fissure and walking down carefully hands first into the misty red beneath until she could reposition herself into a sitting position on the steps.. The red seemed to be coming from some unknown light source, but the thickness of it seemed to be nothing more sinister than fog. So. It reminded her a little of dramatic spooky stories, but it was nowhere close to halloween, and anyway - that only happened with rich kids on special halloween episodes of television shows.

Sat upright she got the opportunity to take stock of the situation. Her perch seemed to be simply wood steps, narrow and a touch damp. She gingerly bounced in her seat. They remained solid and didn’t seem ready to give way anytime soon. Confident but still careful, she inched downward, feet, then hands, then bottom and then repeat.

It was fairly chilly the further she went, and she smoothed her nightdress out down to her knees. The silly thing was that she’d probably get to the end and find it was one of the baby-kid’s light up toys that had fallen down here and the little girls were too scared to go into the basement to get it. In fact if Frisk was here they’d probably shrug and poke fun at her for not noticing the basement crawl-space was underneath them this whole time. Aliza had always been a touch unobservant - suited to solving the problem under her nose, but unlike Frisk unwilling to go much further. Not to mention, she’d probably be scolded for not getting one of the teachers who were still on 'where the hell was Frisk?’ mode. even though she knew in their heart of hearts they’d given them up for dead. Her teeth grit at the injustice and she increased her downward progress more swiftly.

A wild idea had hit her: What if Frisk had fallen down here and no one had thought to look for them here? Or worse, had assumed all the kids already had…but…that just seemed silly. Logically, they’d moved her top bunk and Frisk’s bottom one to make way for Wendy so they would have seen the trap door and searched it, but…but the idea of finding Frisk was too painfully hopeful for her to do much else. She clung to it.

She was standing now as her indignation at the situation increased her determination, marching down the steps. Her sock-covered foot plunged into something slimy and slippery and she teetered, managing to fall back so that she bumped down the final few steps on her bottom, and pitched down to land in…something rather squishy, black and moist, the later of which was currently seeping into the cotton of her nightdress. She was forced to sit and take stock as the force of the fall was still reverberating through her spine. Whatever was underneath was hard floor. On autopilot she crawled out of the black and onto something more solid that seemed to be some poorly schalked dirt.

Well, Miss Louisa was right; there was black mold in the walls.

She pulled out the torch (more a squeeze LED attached to a locker keychain) from her pocket, the narrow yellow beam battling with the red mist which was thicker down here. The beam waned and brightened as the battery jostled when she walked. Eventually she turned it off, resolving only to use it if necessary. There was a passage that seemed to lead….well, only one way and up above her….hm. That final step was pretty high up. She’d fallen further than she’d thought on that last one. She stretched up; she could just brush it with her hand. She could probably catch hold if she jumped for it. Good to know. She bet the hall led out into the cellar at the side of the orphanage. She could just go down there and she’d probably come across whatever was dropped and then wait for Mr. Moore to open it in the morning when he came down to get the breakfast things. She’d have to time it so that she could slip out while the middle-aged man was cursing over the fact that they bought bulk porridge and it was aggravating his (probably nonexistent) hernia because she didn’t want to get in trouble for sneaking out right now.

She walked to the end of the hall and then took the first and only fork it provided her. Right. Heh, it was almost definitely going to be underneath the fruit cellar.

“Are you…are you really there?”

The very second Aliza passed through the threshold at the of the door at the end of the hall, the whole world became a whole new world.

At the far end, an exit - and the clear source of the strange light. It was a lantern…no. A…she knew the word…a scone? No, that was a pasty. Well, the ‘wall-torch’ wasn’t really burning but it was alight with something that was unlike any light source she’d ever seen before. Logic told her it was a halogen bulb or a neon one, but instinct told her logic wasn’t the one in charge anymore. The thing was like a glowing red star, hovering and smoking as it guttered somehow and oozed its red vapor in the dead, stagnant air. She knew. She knew she had to touch it. That touching it would be a Very. Good. Idea.

Logic however still held some control and she wrenched her gaze away, turning back to the fight.

Spread in the middle of the room was a patch of that gross black moss that had broken her fall earlier, but in the very middle of it erupted a single flower. That might not be so unusual; her limited knowledge of bare-bones elementary school biology from the textbooks the teachers had been able to find for her sprang to mind. Some spores flowered, didn’t they…or that would have been her thought….

The blossom erupted from the black mold on a thick, briar-like stalk the thickness of her wrist, studded with stubby but razor edged thorns. It swayed and undulated too, independent of any outside source to influence its hypnotic movement. The fat daisy-like blossom perched on the end of the stalk was the colour of puckered skin when you peeled a plaster left over a finger cut for too long and the petals were a colour that reminded Aliza so powerfully of the colour of sick that she felt almost like being so herself. It was a sinfully ugly flower, but neither it nor the fact that it was growing down here out of black mold in the dark under oozing red light were the most terrifying or noticeable thing about it. It was the fact that where it’s pollen or seed-center would have been, there blinked - yes, blinked, a large, brown, humanesque eye. It looked perfectly non-threatening, there, or at least, as non-threatening as the bizarre nature of a large human eye in the centre of a flower could be…and Aliza knew that was where the voice had come from, though it had no discernible mouth.

“Are you really here?” the voice inquired again.

“Yes…” Aliza replied as if on cue, her own brown eyes boring into the flower’s.

“Do not toy with emotions. It’s rude.” The flower swayed.

“I’m really here.”

“Down here…down here it’s eat or be eaten.”

The flower burst into flame quite as suddenly and with as much venom as if someone had just deliberately tossed a match into a gas line.

“Vicious thing!”

The source of the new voice was hardly ambiguous and Aliza barely had time to process it before her vision was filled with terrible white and red and a sick and mealy sort of green that did little for her already delicate stomach. Her jumper had been grabbed by the monster who had murdered the…flower.

The blackened husk stared up at the newcomer through obvious pain. “Git outta here you CANNIBAL.”

Large white spores formed in the air above the flower and flew at the two of them. Aliza raised her arms, but when no pain came forth she cracked an eye to realize she had not been the intended target. The spores went for the woman who grabbed her - no, not a woman - a goat. A woman with the head of a goat. The projectiles hit their mark and she bounced for the second time that night to the ground.

Aliza shrank back as if she’d been stung. Her expression turned pained, but it wasn’t for long. The goat-head lady spoke up, voice still high and wild.

“Horrible thing! Tormenting the…human.”

Aliza scrabbled out of the way, pressing herself close against the furthest wall from the proceedings.

The flower’s scorched pinion-like petals curled in to protect its eye and its long, thick tentacle like stalks surged up out of the ground to strike at the assailant. After a moment of staring Aliza had surged forward, giving into her instinct and tagging the red light as she passed. She didn’t know why, but it felt like something she should do. Something warm flowed through her and gave her the strength to barrel on forward, the sounds of what was progressing into a definitive battle echoing behind her.

She ran, turning corners and blindly fumbling down hallways, trying to put as much distance between her and whatever might think to follow her later.

“Psst, this way!” whispered a voice.

The creature that hovered there could only be described as a ghost. It looked almost comically like the one of the earliest costumes she and at least half the orphanage had ever worn for Halloween; the shape of a raggedy sheet with two eyeholes cut out. It was certainly a stark contrast to the screeching horrors she’d left behind.

“This way!” it beckoned, hovering atop a section of the spikes.

Somehow, she was inclined to trust them.

Them? It seemed like a 'them’…

She stepped forward over the spot indicated tentatively, and the spines sank harmlessly into the ground.

“Hurry, follow me.” They guided a twisting path along the spines, Aliza carefully stepping along until the end, and then trying to race forward again once she was clear once more.

The ghost threw itself in front of her and it was the unsettling cold of phasing through them, rather than the act of physically banging into something her that saved her. She teetered unsteadily on the edge of a hole in the floor that wouldn’t have thrown her down, but would have provided enough momentum and tightness around a leg for her to be irrevocably stuck, just trapped in place for whatever might come along.

Her guide cleared their throat.

“This room…is a minefield of those. And unless…ah, you might get free if your leg gets chewed off by a Vegetoid first…” they looked apologetic but determined to make her understand the hazards of the place.

Aliza resolved firmly to listen to the ghost from now on.

They serpentined a little way along the corridor, finally slowing to a stop when Aliza’s breath gave out. and she had to rest to pull at a stitch in her side. She wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten, was that from stress or because she was still digesting dinner? Was it already morning? Was anyone was up long enough to find the open door and come looking for her?

Or, as the first flicker of dread within her stomach told her .was more likely, the door had sealed itself and she was as 'gone’ as Frisk was. That would be…

For the first time, the idea of the curse actually seemed more real than a stream of bad luck.

No. No, she could get back. She HAD to get back. She shook the thought from her head.

“Ah…”

The ghost stuttered it’s hesitant voice at her.

“Please…I have to rest….”

It drifted around restlessly.

“Do you have a name?” she wheezed, suddenly aware that her guide might leave her if they thought she was giving up.

“O…Oh. I’m called Blook—er, just Nabstablook.”

“Amd my name is Aliza….and um, what were those things that were chasing me?” she blurted, eager for all the answers she could get while someone seemed willing to give them.

“The underground has become corrupted, since the human souls disappeared…” the ghost muttered softly, almost speaking to themselves rather than Aliza. “No food, no fallen humans…. Most of us have started to turn to other means to survive…”

“Like…cannibalism?” she had been trying to get away, but the flower’s accusation towards the goat-lady wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you put out of your mind, especially not when you could be trapped for goodness knew how long.

“Mm.” Napstablook said, and that appeared to be an affirmative as the white that made up their form below their 'eyeholes’ seemed to bob up and down in an approximation of a nod. “Once the corruption takes hold, a Monster is more or less an animal…a less-than rational or refined creature. ” They appeared to shudder, rippling in space. “Friends, family…”

Alisza shivered along with the ghost. “But…you…” Somehow even though she wasn’t sure she could trust anything here, this Nabstablook didn’t seem…well…corrupted.

“Ghost sandwiches do not typically 'go off'” said the ghost, with what seemed to be a sort of ephemeral shrug despite their lack of shoulders.

Aliza watched Nabstablook’s eyes and scanned their minimal body language for signs of some form of 'joke’ but they bobbed as if they expected her to understand this..

"You’re…immune?” she asked at length.

“More or less.” they said at last. "But…I prefer to be alone, anyway.“

Aliza got the impression that they were only partially fibbing to her. They seemed to be consistently tiring and looking for a way out of the discussion.

"W…wait. Please. Can you just…” A thought struck her. “What I need to know, can you tell me…did you see someone? A…a.person, a HUMAN…who looked a little like me? With hair about my length and light brown skin? DId they maybe come through here?”

“The corruption eats at a Monster’s ability to behave rationally…but it doesn’t diminish their intelligence.”

Before Aliza could protest that hadn’t been an answer to her question, the ghost became increasingly more transparent until it was completely gone., leaving Aliza alone once more.

It was slow going after that now that Aliza was aware of the various hazards and her guide had left her to fend for herself. The good news was that no further pursuit seemed forthcoming, but she somehow knew better than to hope the goat and the flower and finished eachother off.

Although the passages seemed to be a total labyrinth at first glance, her journey did seem to have a specific linear path, leading towards something. This was not necessarily a good thing; perhaps she was not getting ‘lost’ but she also had no idea what she was heading toward.

She walked on, scooping stones to toss ahead of her to trip the various trap holes.

***

The house in the largest cavern was enormous and grand-looking, a bit like one of the big French 'chateaus’ she’d seen in a library book once. There was a tree in the front yard, steeped in yet more of that black mold. Aliza kept a distance this time determined not to let curiosity get the best of her again, but unlike the flower, this thing seemed almost definitely dead. She gave it a wide berth just in case.

Instinct told her to avoid the place and so she continued off out to the exit on the other side.

Her heart sank when she realized that this was definitely a dead end. She was on a ledge, overlooking an expanse of what appeared to be a whole Underground civilization; both sublimely impressive and even further disheartening as she could see no true way out, no matter how far she peered into the distance. A crumbling rail peeked over a very long sheer rock cliff drop - even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t chance it. Even standing almost dangerously close to the edge, she couldn’t even see into the bottom as there was, surprise surprise, nothing but more red mist obscuring her view. Not only that, even if it MIGHT have been safe to jump, the chances of surviving a drop like that were nigh impossible. If the impact didn’t kill her, having most of her bones break at once eventually would.

There was nothing else of value on the ledge save for a single grubby plaster and she simply turned away, only to convulse with chills as she walked through Nabstablook again.

Aliza didn’t bother with them, they’d abandoned her earlier, and she didn’t wasn’t feeling particularly charitable right now.

“Pick it up.” the ghost urged her, voice soft and apologetic sounding. Aliza kept walking.

Stupid ghost, stupid flower. If she was going to go through a spooky house she wasn’t going to do so getting an infection from someone’s used band-aid. She might have been young but she wasn’t an idiot.

She returned to the house. Another one of those strange guttering red lights flickered between herself and the door. She trusted those red lights like nothing else down here and she tagged it the same way she had done in the flower-and-mold-goat-fight chamber, this time leaving her hand a second earlier.

What she really just wanted to go back but somehow she felt she would not be able to. So, once again, if the only way was forward she grit her teeth and stepped forward to try the handle to the front door of the Addams Family Mansion.

It of course swung inward with a long, whining creaking and a scrape of the warped frame on a splintery knotted wooden floor. She could not have been making more noise if she’d tried. So much for stealth.

Of course, in the next moment, a large pair of lantern like eyes swam out of the darkness.

Aliza took an involuntary step back.

“A…ah, my child….” the goat woman cast her gaze down. “I was so…ashamed when you ran from me like that. That monster, that shameless flower, I do not know from where it came, but it appeared not too long ago, trying to disturb the peace of my sanctuary. I mean you no harm…” she reached out a paw. It had clawed tips that looked dangerous but she held it loosely out and remained where she was like someone trying to entice a nervous animal forward.

Aliza watched carefully, muscles still taught. She was ready to spring away at a moment’s notice, but she tried to view the situation like Frisk would have. She watched the nervous swallow the monster-woman gave as she spoke her apology, watched the wringing of her hands and scrutinized the sad, nervous cast to her eyes.

Slowly, tentatively, she nodded.

“I would like to help you child. Give me the opportunity to take care of you!”

“Okay.” It was a slow process, but she could see no other way out of this situation now. She stepped forward and allowed the woman to take her hand. The grip was firm; this monster was strong but not cruel or unkind. 

"I am afraid the Underground will be a hard place to escape, my child. Allow for me to prepare you something to eat and then after such a day you may sleep. We will tackle your problems in the morning.”

Aliza tried to pull away. She still hadn’t forgotten the flower’s accusation of cannibalism.

Evidently the goat monster had not forgotten either. “I promise, I have prepared a butterscotch-cinnamon pie. I would not dream of feeding you meat after the false pretenses and accusations under which we first met.”

Aliza took the slice of pie and had the presence of mind to inspect it quite carefully. . She broke off the smallest possible corner of the crust and put it into her mouth. It was, as the woman had said. A simple pie crust, just as normal as anything she had ever tried at the orphanage. The filling both smelled and tasted of butterscotch and cinnamon and although Aliza didn’t know much about how to make a pie, if there was anything 'organic’ in this dessert, it certainly wasn’t human. Of this, she was quite sure. 

Of course ideas of fairy tales with wicked witches fattening up children to eat popped into mind, but there was no way anyone could get fat from a single, modest sized piece of pie.

She finally relaxed enough to eat it; after all, refusing food in her state wasn’t going to be a wise idea if she was going to escape. She needed all the energy she could get. She seemed to have been right about the red lanterns, but by this point (how long had she been down here by NOW?) she realized that the energy they gave was more like a spike of second wind than filling her stomach like a meal.

The goat lady introduced herself as 'Toriel’ and seemed to want to say more, but shook whatever it was off.

Aliza found herself more than capable of falling asleep after the events of the night and the bed was actually very soft.

***

She awoke in the night to a painfully sore ache in her lower intestine and sweat beading her brow. She kicked off the blanket desperate for fresh air and rolled onto her back, touching the lower half of her stomach, and the action causing her to gasp aloud as worse pain shot up, right into her esophagus. It felt as though she’d swallowed dozens of razor blades and they were….they were going to come out, one way or the other!

She staggered off the bed, and before she knew what was happening, she was emptying h the contents of her stomach on the the floor with a dreadful retch she couldn’t stop.

Dimly she could hear thudding footsteps and the door being opened.

Toriel was obviously sitting next to her, rubbing her back and holding a pail under her mouth. “Oh there, there, poor, weak child….” she made a tsking noise. “I cannot believe I didn’t see it before! You are far too weak to face the underground, sickly and ill….you simply must stay here and allow me to take care of you.”

Aliza moaned in reply, struggling for a breath before she vomited again.

At this point staying here with Toriel caring for her sounded pretty good, if only she could get some relief from the burning and the pain.

“Th…thank you….Toriel.” she gasped, eyes tearing up as another painful retch bubbled up and set her to shaking.

“Call me mum.” the goat-woman said, fingers tangled in her hair, claws combing out the sweaty tangles. “You just call me mum, little one.”

It was so tempting. So so tempting. A mother. Isn’t that what she’d wanted her whole life? A parent? A family to want her?

“I have medicine for your stomach..” Toriel gave her a vial that glowed the same sick green as her eyes, but this time Aliza didn’t hesitate to drink it down. This was mum. She could trust a mother.

She trembled as she tried to keep the medicine down. It settled in her gut with a warming, tingling sensation.

No, not warming, BURNING.

She was on fire, it was awful, It was tearing apart her insides like acid!

She opened her mouth and a sick, terrible rattling gurgle was all that came out like a dying, desperate thing.

“Oh no…” Toriel moaned. “I appear to have overdone the dosage….”

Those were the last words she heard before the poison utterly immolated her insides. She could see, feel as her flesh turned to fat and grease and curled back, her organs, already boiling from the inside out spilled across her lap, slowly decaying coils twisting themselves up into char and it hurt and she tried to gather the air to scream but nothing was available to her and she wanted to die now now nownownownow…

….and she woke, fingertips clutching the lantern.

***

What a horrible dream! She must have passed out by the lantern light. She pushed herself to her feet, rubbing the lower part of her stomach. It felt perfectly fine now, but it had felt so very very real during the dream.

She lifted the hem of her jumper carefully and slowly, still jumpy but desperate to assuage all the lasting vestiges of the Nightmare. She ran a hand over the clear white flesh, traced the mole at her hip. As she tried to get a look at her back she became aware of a cold presence.

“I came a little earlier.” Napstablook drifted. at her elbow, hunched, sheet and eye-holes brimming wide with what seemed to be pearlescent tears. “I have not been the best guide. I do….I get….a little shy sometimes. And worried.”

She took a step back as the ghost’s tears actually pooled at their feet, like gel or…toothpaste along the ground. Aliza pinched herself to see if this was another nightmare but all she succeeded in doing was leaving red, painful fingernail marks in her arm and blink painful tears of her own away while the puddle of ethereal white began to coalesce into …shapes.

She settled into a crouch, unafraid.

The largest of these shapes became the goat-woman Toriel…? Yes…she remembered something like that…and a small revolving blob elongated into something that took a distinct shape of a small human…a child, perhaps. The figures crudely acted out a suddenly distressingly familiar short story. The goat-figure prepared a pie, the shadow making a deliberate and cartoonesque show of adding something with an eyedropper, which she fed to the human child who ate the pie…then, they bent holding themselves like they were sick. Sick in bed, sick doubled over and in pain. Their tiny bodies burning in wisps of pearlescent fire.

The tears coalesced once more, then reformed and Aliza thought they were on a loop, until she noticed one tiny head stone at the edge of a pantomime….and then a second….and then…the number grew.

“Stop!” she cried and then looked up at the house in alarm. "Stop.“ she repeated more quietly. “I…I understand…”

Was Frisk…had Frisk…no. They would not have fallen for it. Frisk had gotten by Toriel. But…the question was ho-OH.

“The band-aid…” Nabstablook had tried to warn her the first time.

Okay, they were cryptic, but they were trying.

Aliza turned her head to thank them, but they were gone again, along with their river of tears. 

Slowly she picked herself up and returned to the observatory on the other side of the large house.

There, laying in the grime was the grubby plaster, looking very much like a grubby plaster. She wondered if it was a trick. A mean trick. . Maybe she should just refuse the pie this time instead. The idea immediately was rejected by her mind. She had seen Toriel’s temper and she somehow imagined her wrath was worse than whatever poison in the world she could ingest.

On the other hand…Napstablook was the most trustworthy thing she’d met here thus far. So she bent, brushed some dirt and dust away and ever so gingerly lifted up the plaster with the tips of her fingernails.

The effect was instantaneous. Her chest felt hot, but it wasn’t the same kind of horrible burning as she remembered from what? Her nightmare? Her do-over? Her wrong choice? Her…death?

Whatever had caused the horrible illness and the miracle that was her awakening at the lantern.

This on the contrary was pleasant. Like someone was giving her an approving nod. Good choice. A for effort.

The little heart hung in the air in front of her, a bright red. The bandaid in her fingers was no longer a grubby plaster but a syringe glittering with something green. Unlike like Toriel’s ‘medicine’ it looked…well, healthy. And Aliza knew what she had to do.

She didn’t like it, but she was going to trust her instincts. Everything about this said she was the only chance at getting out of this whole mess.

Besides, Samuel did this with his insulin every day and he was only six.

She had to get back, so she steeled herself, stuck the needle into the fleshy part of her upper arm with a wince and pressed down the plunger.

Yes. This was right. This was something that had been left here to help her through.

She tried to put the sudden thought out of her head; false hope wouldn’t help her, but even trying to be brave and self-reliant, she knew somewhere deep in her soul that it had been Frisk. Frisk HAD got by Toriel.

And she marched forward to tag the red light a final time.

This time, she wouldn’t fail.

Meeting Toriel a second time, the same conversation replaying was giving her a clearer picture of her situation. This time, she knew the pie was safe to eat…well, for her.

Nonetheless, she opened her eyes and lay there in the dark after the offer of bed, waiting it out. She could feel her insides pinch slightly but settle almost immediately. The antidote was doing its job.

When she was sure that she felt okay to continue, she put her feet to the floor and crept forward.

She opened the door to the room, almost shocked when she came face to face with Toriel, waiting there with a bucket and her 'medicine’, ready to poison her and offer false comfort again.

Aliza recovered first and Toriel was even more shocked when the girl took advantage of her momentary surprise to swiftly duck under her arm and sprint down the hallway and sharply down a flight of stairs that had been chained off, barrelling through the flimsy buffer with ease. Toriel had clearly not been trying very hard, given that most anyone who tried to escape would have been severely weakened by her poison. She let her base instinct guide her, knowing that Toriel was following her but she had a good start… until a burst of fire lit up the hall with a blinding flash and a searing cloud of almost blisteringly hot air behind her.

“STAY! STAY MY CHILD AND I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU FOREVER AS YOUR MOTHER! YOU ARE WEAK! TOO WEAK TO GO ON! FOREVER!” she howled, sounding positively deranged. “JUST LET ME BURN YOU AND YOU CAN STAY IN A BED FOREVER WHILE I TAKE CARE OF YOU! PLEASE!” Aliza was not stopping for love nor money and she prayed she wouldn’t run into a dead end, focussing on moving forward and trying not to listen to the anguished wails from behind or the frequent flashes that indicated another fire ball was on its way.

She was in luck. There was a door up ahead. It was heavy but…she would open it. She had to.

“MY CHIIIIILD!”

She rammed herself bodily into it full force and wonder of wonders, it shifted, just the barest inch. Now almost as deranged as Toriel, she tried again. And again, Just edging it out by fractions slowly, but each keeping her hope flickering.

Just as Aliza’s slender frame had earlier condemned her to being able to just fit into the space beneath her bed, this time it saved her as the opening was just small enough for her to slide through easily, mouse-like and continue her stumble outside…into freezing, cold air and…snow? It was enough to give her pause. She was outside? There was snow on the ground? It had been sort of cold, but definitely not enough to frost…

She could hear the door start to open more swiftly and she leaned back against it as opposed to running on, despite knowing that Toriel was much stronger than she was. Once again, the decision struck her in the odd, decisive fashion that had prompted her to retrieve the plaster that had magically morphed into the syringe. Something deep within that said this was the correct thing to do.

Then suddenly, her heels slid and she stumbled backwards. Somehow, miraculously she was forcing the door closed, her strength outweighing Toriel’s.

With a gasp, she watched as plant vines crept up, aiding her. Desperately she turned around, pushing and bracing her feet more firmly. The door was warm to the touch and she could hear the monster behind it, but Toriel was panting, and and then, she stopped resisting.

“M…my child.” her voice was weak, shaking and tremulous. “…I….I know I have no right, after I have scared you and tried to….to imprison you. I…I was once a good mother.” but it would seem….that even one such as I cannot fight the corruption. I will understand, but…perhaps. Perhaps you can help us. Please, please find a way to free us and end the corruption.”

Aliza frowned deeply. She would be well within her rights to tell this woman exactly where she could stick it after this little adventure and certainly what she thought of her brand of ‘parenting’.

“You might want to answer her.“ spoke up a new but not unfamiliar voice. "It’s rude to toy with people’s emotions. Especially such a nice old lady’s”

The flower was back and Aliza’s nerves stood on end, but it only let out a hollow, mildly hysterical laugh before popping away back into the earth.

Something told her it wasn’t entirely gone, as the undulating twisting plant life that was at once both ivy and rose thorns binding the door began to edge the last sliver of the narrow crack separating herself and Toriel shut.

Aliza made her choice. “…I will. I promise.”

“Bless you, my child.Use judgement. Use your soul. Stay Determined. Resist what the weak cannot…” and then, if Toriel had more to say then it was too late as the living forceps snapped the door completely closed.

Aliza stood looking at the door to the ruins for a long time. The vines wound their way around it, sealing it more than completely, and she watched them until they seemed satisfied with their work. Somehow she knew protesting it wouldn’t help. Toriel was sealed off from her now…but what would help was the large bramble stick that lay in the path. She picked it up, continuing forward while holding it in front of her like a mine detector, setting a cautious pace and using the slow forward momentum to both think and scan for traps.

The old lady…she had believed her when she had told her that she could feel herself slipping, that she wasn’t to be trusted. It was the only thing she was certain had been true. When she’d agreed to her pleas, she wanted to think, to hope that she could be a champion for her. She repeated her last words again, not a mantra but a reminder of things she did not yet understand but knew would be important later.

Use judgement. Use your soul. Stay Determined. Resist what the weak cannot

She didn’t totally trust the eyeball flower and its propensity to chatter at her from out of sight either, but she was as armed as she would be able to get at this point, she supposed..

She turned away from the door and walked into the woods.

There was only forward now.

It was easy to see now that she was not actually outside. The trees here reminded her a little of the small bike path through the town that lead to a very small public park where the orphanage used to take them on weekends. There was only ever a little snow and frost. Instinctively she reached out with the stick she’d picked up and let it clack along the trees as she passed them by. The gesture reminded her of Frisk, who had seemed to be unable to resist picking one up and drumming it xylophone-like against whatever nuanced surface was to hand - gates and trees and bricks.

It kept her mind off the temperature.

After relative neutral cold as the only notable but ultimately useless clue as to where in the world, she was, the stench hit her like a brick wall to the senses. Up ahead the path widened out into a copse. To Aliza it was more or less just a tangle of odd trees - spindly and skeletal sprouted from the earth, which matched the winter weather, but they all boasted long and droopy branches like weeping willows. Long jagged icicles ripped through the ground, glistening in a light she could not find the source of.

The fog was relentless, still red (the corruption? She checked her hands and her arms and legs regularly but sure didn’t feel any different. She wasn’t growing fur or hurting people. Maybe it only worked on monsters.) As she pushed forward, Aliza’s eyes adjusted to the dim light.

It did not matter that she had tried to prepare herself for what was to come. The problem was that the reality was far worse. She startled and simultaneously screamed, covered her mouth and clamped her jaw shut to stifle the noise. The result was her teeth sinking painfully into her tongue so hard she was almost sure she’d bitten it so hard as to go through it.

She hadn’t, but she could feel the sting and the teeth imprint where she had bit down enough to draw blood.

And then, she went numb for an entirely different reason.

Oh God. Oh gods. Oh these were not weeping willow trees. She’d been wrong. Very. Very VERY wrong.

Across the woods, things dangled from trees, some mere rags dangling above dust, some opened nets dripping with blood and what she tried not to think about as hued ichor lest she retch at the stench and sight of it, many it would seem - hanged…perhaps by their own hand. One close to her seemed to have a relieved expression etched into its furry, rabbit-like face that she could not tell whether it was blue from natural colour, the onset of rigor mortis, or asphyxiation. Worse still, what she had thought were large stalactite and stalagmite-like icicles were in fact yet more bodies - or parts of them, frozen blue from over exposure, hacked off in traps at whatever unlucky limbs they’d been caught by, covered in a veneer of snow.

It was hard to tell what was fresh or how long ago it had happened; the cold did not mask the smell but the ‘leftovers’ had congealed quickly. Aliza had never in her life been personally privy to death but she had heard about it from some of the other orphans. They mostly spoke of funeral parlors and weeping people and stuffy-looking floral print wallpaper and occasionally some of them spoke of words Aliza knew like ‘Rabbi’ or ‘Mosque’ or ‘Deacon’. She had heard the words ‘they looked peaceful and very nice’ from Ms Louisa or Mr. Moore and was worldly enough to understand that they were applied to a dead body. Well…she could put money on it now that if they saw the bodies before whatever those places did to them…none of them were like this. This horrible place where people went to give up and to die.

If she really discovered that Frisk did not make it here, or if they escaped where she failed, she promised herself it would not be in a tree and she would go to the funeral. Frisk would feel the same way. They were cool like that.

A sound like pained whimpering almost made her miss the more obvious sound of approaching footsteps. She hastily ducked behind a girthy tree, peering out apparently unnoticed despite shaking pretty badly. 

The footsteps stopped, too far away up the path for them to know she was there. Through the gloom, the…newcomer had stopped a short way down the path. It was difficult to make out what they looked like. At first glance the effect was jarring, as they looked like a round sort of blob on top of too-skinny legs. Then, as her eyes re-adjusted she realized that they were both wearing a heavy jacket with the hood pulled up (…and baggy gym shorts? In this weather? She was freezing!) and they were carrying something over their shoulder. It looked faintly like an axe, but the shape of it too was somewhat off-kilter and it gleamed an odd sort of off-white in whatever the light source was around here. She didn’t dare get any closer, but she could hear the whimpering grow louder.

The figure straightened and raised the thing high in the air. Aliza turned away and fixated on a point the way she had come from, having a pretty good idea of what was about to happen, but it didn’t block the sharp whistle of something coming down with extreme speed and force, nor the 'shunk’ noise it made when it landed,. Predictably it had silenced the whimpering too.

There was a dull, heavy thud followed by a silence that had Aliza been a more worldly person she could have described as oppressive.

Aliza dared to peer around. As she did, the figure suddenly looked up and for one harrowing moment Aliza was sure she’d been discovered. She ducked behind the tree before they could turn around and was aware of how loud her breathing was. Instead of footsteps, there was a bizarre noise like an untuned radio picking up static and when she dared to look again, the figure had gone.

Unfortunately she could see now what had happened without the bulky body obscuring the act. The unlucky soul who had gotten caught had been harvested of its head, which was now missing along with the whoever or whatever-it-was that had taken it; the body oozing fluids into the snow.

Two very vital points hit Aliza at once. The first was that whatever these monsters were…they could bleed. Bleed and die.

The second was that whomever the headhunter was, it CLEARLY had known something else was coming, and if the first was afraid of the second, she would rather take a cue and get on out of there before it showed up.

As she lifted her feet to move to a new location, she sighed and lifted one foot from the snow to rub warmth into her feet. Frisk had left her an antidote to Toriel’s pie, couldn’t she have left her boots or a jacket? She massaged her other foot as well until some feeling came back in.

There was a loud crash.

So Aliza tucked and rolled down the nearest snowbank, pressing herself up against the slope, then thinking better of it and crawling as far away from her dive-to-crash site as she dared, trembling. The snow was re-seeping through her stocking feet but she forced herself to stay put.

The crashing continued, all branches snapping and pounding steps. If Toriel was a goat, was this a…a bull?

She didn’t have time to ponder it any longer, as the latest horror crashed into view, confirming Aliza’s suspicions that it was not even trying to keep quiet or hide itself. It was tall, Taller even than the tallest human she’d ever seen; Mr. (Lieutenant) Moore was pushing a good 6'3" and towered over all the kids at the orphanage, and sported a bright red handlebar moustache. This creature could have made him seem like a child himself by comparison. To make the whole thing even more disconcerting, this monster resembled nothing so much as a skeleton, wearing thick upper torso armor, massive boots and a moth-eaten scarf that blew dramatically. This would have been rather intimidating in and of itself but its teeth were a stack of long, jagged row of monolithic tombstones that filled his mouth with an uneven grin. Even from here they were splattered freely with a brownish red that Aliza was VERY willing to bet was blood.

As she peered over the lip of her snowbank, the monster moved through the woods, chattering away unconcernedly. His voice was loud, even over the chatter of Aliza’s own heartbeat pounding in her ears. With no way to block out the noise, the young girl was forced to listen. He wasn’t muttering nonsense, he was actually giving himself an extremely vigorous pep talk, plucking the hanging and the trapped dead, snapping limbs like kindling and fitting them in a large bag like some vision of Krampus himself. Yet, as much as Aliza could not look away, there was a weariness to the whole affair, as though he didn’t want to be doing this anymore than she wanted to be seeing it.

“Ah well, it is what it is, the Great Papyrus at least will not let anyone starve this week…”

He paused when he came across the body, decapitated by the unknown head hunter from earlier. The bag was set down so the behemoth could wring his hands together.

"Oh, Undyne won’t be liking this. Ah Well, I shall just have to double my efforts to bring them to justice!” In spite of his bold words and the fact that he was a bloody hulking horrifying mess who was clearly harvesting the dead to use as food, Aliza’s heart suddenly went out to the guy.

The massive skeleton pulled out something from his pocket. None of the children were permitted such a luxury device but a handful of adults owned the adults used mobile phones at the orphanage, so Aliza recognized it for what it was. Her heart gave a flicker of hope. She could wait until this thing was gone and then she could try to place herself. Surely if she walked out far enough she’d be able to see Mt. Ebott.

In the back of her mind the scene she’d seen off the shattered balcony next to Toriel’s castle stymied that thought but she squashed it down. If there was reception then…

She was jolted back to the present by the loud voice. He was hard to think over, let alone ignore.

“Empress Undyne, it has happened again!” His tone was conversational yet it left her reeling as though it had been screamed next to her ear.

There was a pause, during which the echo of each last word bounced around the forest several times and Aliza was grateful that at least the monarch was as long-winded as the skeleton was mercifully silent while listening for a reply.

"Well, yes, that’s what I did!”

There was another pause.

"I understand Empress…oh, yes of course we ARE friends. Undyne.”

Another long pause.

“Well…I….” And then , he shook his head. as if coming to some great decision. “No Empress. The Great Papyrus does NOT know who is taking the heads for their greedy, selfish selves in CLEAR violation of your great authority, but…but…I will remain relentless in my efforts to find them.”

He sighed. “And if you will PLEASE let my brother be late on his selling permit this one last time, The Great Papyrus would very much appreci…thank you Empress…You are as magnanimous as ever…keeping my brother in line is a nearly full time task in and—” he trailed off. “Ah…I … I HAVE JUST REALIZED THAT I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM! I SHALL CALL YOU BACK MY LIEGE!”

The phone snapped shut with a click that seemed just plain bizarre, until she realized those black pits that made up the skeleton’s eyes being locked with her over the slight ridge of her hiding spot snow bank that Aliza realized she was the reason for his abrupt dismissal of his own monarch. Evidently a snow bank wasn’t exactly an ideal place to hide from a 9-foot skeleton whose great height spared no quarter with the horizon.

She had no opportunity to run, as his gait crossed the distance between them with ease.

“Good evening, small…Monster. I am afraid that my collection rounds are all but over for the day, but I may be able to wait a few moments while you get on with it…”

It took Aliza a moment to figure what he meant. Her hands flew to her own neck protectively.

“No NO! I don’t want to…”

"AH! SO! I am proud of you small monster child! You have been Captured by the Great Papyrus and you wish to try your hand at freedom with one of my DEADLY PUZZLES!”

Aliza did not want this either, but she was trapped between a snowbank and a giant skeleton who either expected her to…hang herself or try his puzzle.

She cleverly shook her head vehemently.

“Well, I am sorry, we are ALL hungry but orders are orders and I must set for you an example, young…Hm. Strange, Papyrus head of the Royal Hunting Collective and Head of Her Highness’ Guard does not know what kind of strange Monster you are.”

“I’m not a monster, I’m a human.” Aliza told him, trying to backwards claw her way up the bank, only to find herself skidding down in some permafrost, snow and mud.

As a result, the Skeleton sucked in a 'breath’ or it sounded like he did, weird as THAT was. "A HUMAN! But this is INCREDIBLE! I have always been most curious…” In the moment the creatures’ expression faltered somewhat. Aliza screamed instinctively and suddenly the situation had passed and she stared up at the skeleton, staying where he’d fallen and cringing back using her elbows and the depth of the snow to shrink back as best she could. She only enough to get out of the immediate range of his breath (again…?) that smelled like the woods around them, like rot and death.

It did not deter the demon.

"I am MOST excited, human! The last time a human tried one of my deadly puzzles, I do believe I am afraid I did not get there in time and it had just lost its head to our outlaw thief! Still, we came no closer to catching the culprit…” Aliza squawked as she was suddenly hoisted over a shoulder, The skeleton made off forwards with Aliza against his shoulder, her head coming dangerously close to the bag of dead bodies he hoisted over the opposite with each step.

“Not to worry human, I am as fair and just as I am great. and let me say that all things considered, it is hardly fair to me or my kingdom either! This is why I shall take you to my home where you must eat my spaghetti and rest a total of just under seven hours to regain your strength.

Aliza was not particularly reassured, but was certainly not looking forward to the puzzles, and a lot of blood was rushing to her head as she watched the ground bounce along from her upside down position …but at least spaghetti sounded normal.

Of course, so had Toriel’s pie, and Aliza did not want to find out what it was that enormously tall, loud skeletons who ate (how?) their own dead put in their spaghetti. On the other hand, Papyrus was different. He hadn’t tried to lie to her her at least about what her fate would be if she happened to fail one of these puzzles yet as confident as he seemed there might be a chance he could be outsmarted or…a puzzle has to have a solution at least. Papyrus didn’t seem the type to make an unsolvable equation.

After all, this mysterious head-hunter…they were managing to outsmart him.

Then of course, there was that all-important mobile phone. She didn’t know the phone number at the orphanage but maybe she could call 999. Emergency services signals were in remote areas.

To alleviate the discomfort of the blood rushing to her head as she bounced along, Papyrus was,at least, if you ignored the fact that he kind of kept rolling it back around to the fact that he was still very much thinking of her as food, actually giving her a fairly decent wealth of information as he talked. He was the head of the royal Hunting Party and Captain of the Guard to Empress Undyne. They were sealed underground…could she get them to talk any more about that? How was this underground? How far back did the basement cellar go? They were very low on food and were doing what they could in the wake of the corruption; well that tallied with Toriel and Nabstablook anyway. Humans were a precious resource they couldn’t afford to waste…”

Aliza knew she was right about Papyrus. He really didn’t WANT to be doing this, but he was a victim of circumstance.

The house was clearly old and in a certain amount of disrepair both inside and out. But despite its musty and damp interior complete with a pervading smell of some of the church sale books that had been donated to the orphanage over the years it was welcome respite from the cold .

Papyrus (the great?) had deposited her in a seat and had given her a blanket that smelled powerfully of mothballs and…something like…well, Bernie the Groundskeeper had an old dog and they’d all loved playing with it, but it’s breath smelled like something had mated with a trash can and a port-o-potty had a baby in a landfill (as Frisk had said) and Miss Louisa had told them all that the dog’s gums and teeth had rotted and they should all remember to brush their teeth EVERY night lest their own breath smell like it

The house was musty and damp, with a pervading smell of some of the church sale books that had been donated to the orphanage over the years.

Papyrus (the great?) had deposited her in a seat and had given her a blanket that smelled powerfully of mothballs and…something like…well, Bernie the Groundskeeper had an old dog and they’d all loved playing with it, but it’s breath smelled like something had mated with a trash can and a port-o-potty had a baby in a landfill (as Frisk had said) and Miss Louisa had told them all that the dog’s gums and teeth had rotted and they should all remember to brush their teeth EVERY night lest their own breath smell like it

Just as she was adjusting the blanket to a comfortable level to avoid the rot-stink but still be warm, Papyrus remerged, carrying a plate in one hand which he presented proudly to her as if it had been made of gold.

“Thank you.”

“Ah tis nothing. I the Great Papyrus have given you the finest the Underground has to offer! Now eat human!”

The pasta itself seemed alright, it wasn’t the horrible mess of viscera and intestines she’d been imagining, and even the sauce looked distinctly non-bloody. She took a few strands and tentatively tasted them. The noodles were gummy and overcooked, the sauce was more boiled tomatoes than actual marinara sauce and the the meatballs were…chewy? Filled with a hard….thing? She spat the half-chewed thing into her hand, and felt her blood run ice cold in her veins. . NOT a meatball. An eye, oshe’d bitten into an eyeball. An eyeball, long dangling optic nerve attached. It was bitten in half where she’d managed to chomp through it (ew, ew so gross), the jelly like lens being the hard thing she’d encountered. She stifled an urge to wretch and buried the poor eyeball underneath the mess of sauce and and noodles and set it on the table. She was no longer hungry.

No sooner had she just calmed herself from this most recent freak out, then the door opened inward and the new monster who strolled in made her want to hide mothball smell or not.

He wasn’t particularly tall or full of uneven teeth (though they were most definitely sharp) like Papyrus, but she knew he was to be feared.

His skull had a chunk out of it and he was dragging what at first glance was an axe but at second glance seemed to be two bones fused together in the shape of one. What was most alarming was that as Toriel and Nabstablook had explained, the creature had a red glow in one eye it did not try to hide.

The mark of the corrupted. And this creature was fully corrupted.

“Heya human.” he waved a hand a little in a sort of lazy little wave. “Papyrus, ya didn’t tell me we’d be having a dinner guest. Sounds tasty.”

“Sans, no.”

“Hm. Was talkin’ bout the stew bro…I’ll be down whenever.”

He grinned at Aliza in passing, voice lowering down to a rumble that seemed to be a bare whisper and simultaneously a low rumble directly into her ear, despite his being obviously across the room. “Hey human. Woshufeetandhands…and especially the head.”

She gasped as she realized that she knew him. He had been the head-hunter…and he had most definitely not told his brother. She stored the information. Maybe if this would lead to an argument or in-fighting, she would be able to run.

On the other hand, Papyrus…didn’t seem…well,..she would probably regret this later but…he didn’t seem…so bad.

“I swear Sans, sometimes I think half your common sense has been chipped away with that skull of yours…”

“Prolly.”

Papyrus raked a hand down his face with a tortured screech of bone-on-bone. “Kitchen. NOW.”

Somehow Aliza got the impression that NO ONE besides Papyrus got to take that particular tone with Sans. While the kitchen door was closed, it didn’t block out either of the voices.

“Sans, please. I know you are starving as am I…but for once in your life, try to exercise some self-control.” Papyrus begged, voice rising in frustration, even as he attempted to remain calm. “You know of my suspicions that that bartender friend of yours is probably the one out and about taking those heads…and, BOTHER, how does it even LOOK if the Captain of the Royal Guard’s own BROTHER is seen partaking of stolen food!”

“Eh, don’t get a-HEAD of yourself bro, Alphy’s cameras haven’t picked up any traces of fire magic eh? Corrupted or otherwise. Ol’ Grilbz is just a resourceful cook is all.”

“THEN WHO IS PROVIDING HIM WITH THESE RESOURCES?” Papyrus actually lost it, voice rising to a screech. “EMPRESS UNDYNE HAS ENTRUSTED ME TO BE FAIR AND EQUITABLE! IF YOU ARE TAKING EXTRA THEN EVERYONE WILL ASSUME SO AM I!”

“Hehe, don’t worry about what Undick says. She hasn’t got eyes in the back of her head. In fact, she barely has any in the front of her head.”

There was a crash and rattle that sounded like Papyrus had stomped his boot and upset every pot in the richter scale radius in the process. “I WILL THANK YOU NOT TO SPEAK ILL OF OUR MONARCH! I DO NOT WISH TO BE PUT IN THE POSITION OF CHOOSING BETWEEN MY SWORN DUTY AND MY BROTHER! DO NOT MAKE ME CHOOSE, SANS!”

This appeared to be the end of the argument, as there was no other replies forthcoming.

Papyrus made a reappearance, but Sans did not. Maybe Papyrus had made him go out to that shed she’d seen on the way in as punishment, or he’d stormed out angry. “I am most sorry you had to hear that, Human.” he boomed. My brother has not been the same since he had that…run-in with Queen Undyne. You must forgive him, he’s…he’s not so bad.“ Papyrus sighed.

Yeah, of course he actually loved his head-harvesting freaky brother.

"I thought he said UnDic–”

“WELL THAT. HE CAN FORGET THAT IT’S ILLEGAL TO EAT MORE THAN YOUR FAIR SHARE OF OUR LIMITED FOOD SUPPLY BUT REMEMBERS EVERY NAUGHTY CURSE WORD IN HIS VOCABULARY. Papyrus looked from Aliza to the pushed away plate on the table.

"Oh no, I knew it, you DID overhear our rather unseemly argument. I must admit that fighting with one’s brother is NOT a very good habit for a Royal Guard….” he sighed. “BUT YOU MUST NOT LET SANS…AND MY…” he he added after a moment, shamefaced at his own perceived poor manners, “BAD HABITS SPOIL YOUR APPETITE! YOU MUST BE FATT-ER-AH. I MEAN TO SAY, STRENGTHENED FOR YOUR RUN OF DEADLY PUZZLES!”

Had it been ANYONE else, Aliza would have thought that Papyrus was playing head-games with her, trying to psych her out. . But, it didn’t seem at all his style.

“I’m very full.” Aliza assured him. “Humans don’t need to eat as much, um…because we’re not as big as you. See? She stood from the chair to emphasize her point. Next to Papyrus she was very short indeed. Also, she was determined that no matter how hungry she was, she was NEVER eating pasta with stringy optic nerves and eyeballs and God knew what else she might have unearthed.

A thought struck her. "Why don’t YOU have the rest?” she picked up the plate and passed it back to Papyrus. For heaven’s sake, at the very least it might be nice to stop having to hear about deadly puzzles and thinly veiled attempts to pretend he wasn’t obviously hoping she’d be fattened up to be eaten every few minutes.

She hadn’t been quite prepared for the emotional whiplash.

"You ARE kind, human.” He sat down heavily next to her. There was something….wet and shiny at the corner of his eyes. "That is….the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me!” he sobbed, confirming Aliza’s suspicions. He was crying.

His eyes were as black and vacant as one expected skeleton sockets to be but the corruption was very very faint. So much so you had to squint to notice it, it was only amplified by the tears.

Aliza had to look down at her hands as he ate the remainder of her pasta, half-masticated eyeball and all, a rather messy affair that took some time with his mouth full of teeth. Somehow the attempts at slurping just made it worse, but soon, the weight at her side lifted with a soft rattle of cutlery..

With his plate clean Papyrus moved to the kitchen. There was a splutter of running water and soon the monster came back with…a pair of rather small metal handcuffs, seizing Aliza’s free arm and clamping down one of the restraints.

Although the skeleton was forceful, he also wasn’t cruel.Each action was enough to convince Aliza to allow it to happen, even if she still pulled away slightly in an instinctive response. It didn’t take much for Papyrus to gain control of her other hand, bringing it down firmly but gently.

“I am most sorry human, but this is necessary. You are still a prisoner, if a particularly cooperative one.” He fastened her wrists to the steel end-table leg. “And you must be getting your rest as you know well what is upon you in the morning.”

Her eyes went wide. “What about Sans?” she blurted before she could stop herself.

“If Sans actually tries to chew on you during the night, you may call for the Great Papyrus. But I should think he at least knows better than THAT.” Papyrus scoffed with the confident air of one who wasn’t restrained like a bloody sacrifice!

Papyrus bade her a final goodnight before stomping up to the second floor, leaving her to get comfortable on her couch with her hands tied up as they were. Suddenly it was not Sans that was weighing on her mind.

She had not seen one of the lights in a while. What would happen if she died tomorrow? Was there only one reset? Would she have to take on Toriel a second time?

“Help me, Frisk.” She whispered into the darkness of the musty house.

***

Sleeping was not happening, not with Sans and his axe potentially lurking about. It was still impossible to tell how long she’d been away, but if she remembered correctly, Papyrus had suggested a 7- hour sleeping period. She wondered faintly what kind of bed fit a 9-foot skeleton…or…well, whatever ridiculously inhuman height he actually was. He certainly didn’t seem like he could sleep in a normal bed. Besides, there was still the incongruous notion of what exactly would happen if she did get out? Frisk or no Frisk? She had a pretty good idea of what happened to children who told their caregivers they went looking for their missing friend and found themselves chased and captured and challenged by monsters who….were cursed? It all involved dancing around the use of the word 'insane’ followed by a fairly permanent trip to the doctor who dealt in mind-altering pills and padded walls.

On the flip side of the coin, what if…what if all of this WAS real. She would be responsible for letting hundreds of corrupted monsters out of their prison?

Or maybe it was different than that. Maybe the corruption would go away if they just weren’t stuck down here. A part of it did feel like she was missing something. Toriel understood what was going on despite her obvious slipping. Papyrus had found SOME means to really fight it to an obviously extreme degree. Napstablook was immune by dint of being ….already dead?

The eyeball flower was possibly the strangest of all of the creatures she’d encountered thus far. No red, but working on its own agenda. Maybe it wasn’t even a monster.

What of Sans? Had he too once been likable? Or even kind? He didn’t seem the type, but then again he was missing a chunk out of his head…Then agan also…

…What was it that Napstablook had said? That the corruption turns a monster into what amounts to a clever animal? So, he was smart enough to get around whatever monitoring system was in place by the guard, but he was really putting his brother in a bad spot if he was the Captain of the Empress’ Un…dick’s Royal Guard. She caught herself giggling a little in spite of herself at Sans’ unfortunate nickname for the monarch. It was the kind of thing Frisk would have said.

The thought sobered her almost immediately and her mind looped back around. Maybe she was already crazy. She’d lost her mind after losing her best friend, was making up a long involved story about a quest to find them and now she was having a long drug trip in the hospital.

***

The morning broke and Aliza had fallen asleep, finally succumbing to fatigue in spite of her whirling thoughts and the potential of impending threat by Sans. Her wrists were both fraught with pins and needles from the unnatural chaining of her hands and she sat up to try to rub feeling back into them around the restraints. Whatever awaited her at the end of this was coming soon.

Then, with a deeply unpleasant start for having just woken up, she noticed Sans, sitting across from her in the other piece of furniture in the room, practically oozing in repose into the contours of a reclining armchair in a hideous shade of lime green, decorated with large burnt orange and mustard-yellow daisies in yarn. He was somehow managed to be sitting both slumped and leaning back at the same time, a deep rumbling noise emitting from somewhere in his chest. He was ….snoring, and with a horrible clogged spit-in-the-throat sound which made even less sense than the actual snoring in and of itself did in the first place.

Aliza made a noise of disgust as she sat up the rest of the way, positioning her feet under her; her only weapon left save for yelling for Papyrus. Sans didn’t stir and in a fit of childishness, she stuck her tongue out at him (her hands were permanently pointing down and so she could not have given his sleeping form the gesture she’d REALLY loved to have delivered). Yes, he was terrifying and she knew that he was the most dangerous of the lot save perhaps for his brother, but there was a good amount of disgust mixed in with the fear. . Even with that chunk out of his skull, , it was pretty clear that Sans wasn’t exactly suffering or starving and he seemed to have no troubles putting his brother’s life and job in jeopardy to do it. What a JERK. Aliza had some other words but somehow when it came to being in Papyrus’ house, the very less -than-vulgar came out, even in her own thoughts.

Speaking of the devil, a thunderous crashing rent the air and set the house to shaking and it was no surprise the cringe-worthy fanfare precluded the arrival of a slightly bleary-eyed skeleton who was presently talking aloud to himself about breakfast spaghetti.

It totally proved that Sans was almost probably feigning sleep now, there was NO way anyone could sleep through that racket.

“And how did you sleep, human?”

The answer was ‘terrible’, but Papyrus was vibrating with excitement and happiness and it was deliberately difficult to say anything negative to the…human-eating skeleton. The mental hospital theory was clearly starting to look fairly plausible, that is to say if the whole business up until now wasn’t actually real. It was hard to say what she hoped was actually true.

“It was…okay.”

“And what would you like for breakfast? We have spaghetti and spaghetti.” Papyrus chortled a bit at his own sort of sad little joke.

Aliza felt a little defeated. “I’m still full from last night.” she muttered, trying to hope her stomach wouldn’t pick an inappropriate moment to expose her lie (would Papyrus even know what it meant if it did? She supposed so, as the spaghetti he’d eaten last night didn’t just drop out on the floor, he had to be putting it somewhere. Invisible stomach?)

“Perhaps you would care for some tea then? Empress Undyne says it is the best way to begin your day, so I am under strict orders to set a fine example.”

Even without her formative experiences, she would have said any food here was to be under suspect but the gnawing in the pit of her stomach that was now extremely identifiable hunger that wouldn’t be possible to ignore for much longer, did prompt her to decide to risk the tea. The spaghetti minus the gory additions had been at the very least reasonably devoid of any new sinister plots to poison her.

She sipped the drink slowly when it came, trying to trick her stomach into believing it was a meal.

“Hurry human! The sooner you finish your tea, the sooner I may begin the puzzles! I am sure that you will be anxious to begin!”

Aliza’s stomach turned over and she was suddenly grateful for being unable to consume the disgusting mess of what passed for a normal diet here. The moment Aliza put the dregs of her cup down however, Papyrus launched up to grab her hands and uncuffed them, just long enough to unlock her from her table leg, then immediately redoing the cuffs in standard prisoner mode. In spite of all that had happened, she watched as he put the key; a big, clunky old-looking affair, into his scarf and she was definitely willing to bet they weren’t magic cuffs.

“Standard procedure.” he explained, putting a hand on her shoulder rather roughly and even with the rattling of his bones in his excitement as he steered her towards the door in a firm march, Aliza felt another wave of forgiveness. Papyrus, even sniffing and drooling and clearly rooting against her on the puzzles, now at the most violent she’d ever seen him behave, still commanded a weird but legitimate sympathy.

As she was brought out of the house, she noticed that the atmosphere was lighter, as though some form of ‘daylight’ was upon them. She didn’t have much time to appreciate the oddity (or novelty) as the walk was short. Aliza spotted something weird that put her in mind of a mini-golf course (though clearly it had been long disused).

A tattered, striped shirt was trapped under a large rock that fluttered in….well, Aliza wasn’t going to question 'daylight’, or 'wind’ or 'underground snow’, if she had already accepted 'walking talking skeleton men’ among other things.

They walked on, and she began to hear the rumblings of nearby voices. Sure enough there was a crowd of Monsters over the next hill. Some of them clearly seemed to be of the same gene pool (?) as Toriel; bipedal rabbits, dogs and other critters whose above ground, non sentient equivalents would have been well adapted to a frosty environment. Meanwhile others looked out of place like the creatures that looked like large birds and fish and something rather frightening that looked nothing like any creature Aliza had ever encountered; simply a gaping mouth filled with sharper, more dangerous looking teeth than either Sans or Papyrus could boast.

There was a great cheering at the sight of Papyrus’ massive frame cresting the hill and the effect was that he seemed to straighten up to an even greater height than he normally was somehow. 

It was impossible to tell whether any of the lot gathered actually liked him as a person or whether they were just aware that there was a good potential of being fed that day; but it was clear that the Skeleton enjoyed whatever attention it was that he could get.

A couple of the dogs, the meanest, most rabid-looking ones, both in armour were standing with two other creatures, similarly chained as Aliza was; therefore other prisoners who either found themselves without a choice or still had enough of a spark not to take the coward’s way out.

The first puzzle clearly had to do with the weird pit in front of them. As Papyrus and Aliza drew level with the group, the biggest of the dogs jerked the shoulder of the first of the other monster prisoners, an ugly lumpy potato-like creature. It made an unhappy, pained sort of whimper and appeared to be trembling.

Aliza felt a spark of hope leap in her chest as Papyrus chose to maneuver her to the end of the line after another prisoner. If she watched the others go first, she might have a strategy as to how to proceed when it was her turn.

“Permission to begin, Captain Papyrus?”

The enormous armoured dog with the deceptively small head growled in a voice that sounded (hopefully less deceptively) like the world was going to end. The dog was terrifying on his own, but his willingness to acquiesce to Papyrus’ command ratcheted up her fear of the skeleton holding her firmly in place.

Above her head, Papyrus gave a quiet little sound that sounded suspiciously like 'Nyeh’. Unsurprisingly he loved and responded with delight at being called by his title. “Yes, Proceed, Greater Dog!” he gestured grandly.

As Papyrus made a sweeping motion outwards, Aliza being the person in the closest proximity could feel the hum of static in the air. She had little time at the present to boggle it out as the ‘deadly puzzle’ had begun in earnest and she needed to pay attention.

The guard-dog hefted the ball, about the size of a slightly larger than normal tennis ball, but this had none of the grooves or fuzz and was clearly made of some kind of metal. It was also a clearly important part to the completion of the…maze?

“Find the safe path across the field.” Papyrus gestured to the grid of wired off snowfield in front of him.

Yeah. A random mass of snow that all looked alike and a 1 in however many steps the path was to get across? Some ‘puzzle’.

Evidently the potato had the same idea, as his face screwed up in frustration and he began to dare to moan to his guards once more. It was either bravery or stupidity. Probably the later. “Aw this isn’t…”

The creature barely finished his sentence before he was poked forward, teetering on the edge of Papyrus’ pit.

“Man!” it whined.

Oh yeah, definitely the ‘stupid’ option.

It got yet another insistent and irritated prod from its’ guardsman’s weapon; apparently a long vicious orange spear for the irritation of opening its mouth.

A long drop with a short stop was the other option open and it wasn’t hard to see that the potato was seriously rethinking the merits of it. On the other hand, they still stepped forward. Papyrus had been fuzzy on the reward for completing the puzzles successfully. Perhaps no one ever had.

Slowly, the monster stepped into the field. There was a painstaking intake of breath from the audience, as if they were expecting something. Definitely more than a few disappointed looks when it didn’t. Another step, another baited breath, and another collective mutter of resentment that the potato was still alive.

Aliza frowned. internally asking herself the million dollar question. What happened if someone took a wrong step?

And in the next second she got the answer. The instant the spindly little foot came down, there was a vicious crackle of energy, coming from the ball and the ground alike.

There was a powerful stench of meat in the air, and the onlookers were cheering as the potato-thing was….well it was definitely a baked potato now. A meat-potato.

Papyrus casually flicked a switch and pointed to the large dog. The creature went into retrieve the blackened body of his prisoner, taking it to a cart at the side where it was dumped unceremoniously, one leg flopped bonelessly over the lip. It was gingerly prodded back into the cart via spear tip.

The other prisoner before Aliza looked frightened now; this one a large bird with a draconian-like muzzle The terror looked ugly and out of place on its’ fierce face. It was replaced in a moment by rage which didn’t alleviate Aliza’s worries, especially when it opened its wings with a dramatic flair, the resulting breeze wafting across her face and pinions so close they came in a hairs breath of brushing her nose. 

“FUCK YOU SNOWY! FUCK YOU!” it called angrily, eyes fixed on an unknown point in the milling crowd of monsters, calling out for someone whom Aliza couldn’t place in the sea of faces. Her voice was wracked and heaving with sobs and tears mixed into the anger. “I’m gonna beat this stupid puzzle an’ then I’m gonna come after you and kill you for this!”

“Enough Chill!”

With a vicious tug and a warning grumble from the other dog, the brief emotional uprising was quelled and this time Aliza heard an audible hum as the electric field was switched on and the metal conductor tucked beneath a wing.

At the dog’s command, the next victim began to try their hand. The bird-lady seemed to be quite a bit more clever than her predecessor and at the point of the approximate halfway mark, it looked as though she was going to have a chance of making it through. She wondered if ‘Snowy’ was worried or if they were even in the audience at all. Then her mind drifted further. What if this bird (‘Chill?’) had beat the puzzle? That might mean she wasn’t last in an unsolvable puzzle but rather first in a new one. What then?

Pondering that one out didn’t take too long. It happened, just inches from the opposite side of the board, Foolishly, the bird had assumed the last step was a straight shot off the electric field, but somehow even Aliza knew that Papyrus probably was a bit more clever than that…although she had to admit, a random path through an electric field, while certainly deadly, didn’t seem like much of a ‘puzzle’. Wouldn’t she have just as much of a chance of guessing the last step wrong as either of the two now-dead monsters? She was REALLY hoping that she had luck on her side since as of now there was no time left to pray or hope as the board was once again cleared of the fallen and Aliza was pushed forward to the most virulent deluge of whispers yet.

Much of it awe about Papyrus’ ability to capture a human, .

The proximity to the electric field made her hair stand slightly on end with static and the ball was placed in her hands. It was heavy but not monumentally so. There was a faint hum in it too and it made her fingers tingle a little; like rubbing her feet across a carpet to shock someone.

The first part was easy, tracing the path that the bird woman had laid out. but there was a pause at the end. This was it. One wrong step.

Then, she heard it. The hum was slightly louder. She turned back on the path and held it out as far as she could in front of her. The hum increased in volume. Pulling it back closer to her body, it dulled.This was it. It was a puzzle. It did have a solution.

She returned to the end of the path, and tested around revolving slowly and listening hard. She prayed her theory was correct. She stepped forward….and was delighted to still be alive.

Again.

Again.

This way loud, that way quiet.

Another step.

Another. And…she had done it. She was standing on the opposite bank.

“HUMAN! I AM IMPRESSED!” Papyrus clapped his hands, marching forward, ignoring the hums of disappointment and the murmurs of discontent from the crowd. As much as the bulk of her attentions were focussed on survival, it was fascinating to watch Papyrus’ inner thought processes, given how he wore his heart (not literally) on his sleeve. He seemed genuinely proud and impressed with her coming up with the solution, but she thought she saw even his eyes flickering around a little nervously at the rest of the crowd. She couldn’t blame him, but rather felt that he’d probably worry about what everyone thought just the same, had there been no imminent danger from someone deciding he wasn’t the biggest and baddest around.

“Come now, on to the next! I will not need you further, Greater Dog, Lesser Dog. Your orders are the rest of the day are to divide up the rations equally among our citizens. I am sure I will have a human to add to that by the end of the day, along with it’s soul for our Empress.” he added quickly, putting a hand on Aliza’s shoulder, meaning to steer her away but simply making her stumble with his unwitting force.

A cheer went up and the crowd melted away, attentions definitely on the much more immediately pressing prospect of food, the grisly prospect of which Aliza was glad to leave behind her. As they marched on in relative silence she noted it seemed to have started snowing harder, something she’d barely noticed happening (if it had) earlier with the bulk of her attentions on the puzzle and the crowd and her jailer.

Perhaps it was for this reason, or simply a fortunate coincidence that the second puzzle seemed to be an indoor one; a deceptively ramshackle small building that Papyrus ushered her into, closing and locking the door behind them of course, before maneuvering her into position and crossing to the other end. The interior was both relatively simple looking but at the same time, rather oddly technologically impressive in a sort of retro way. On the one hand there was a grid like pattern that comprised the majority of the long stretch of floor. On the the direct opposite end sat the clear exit and a control panel? A robot? A calculator? Although the idea that another grid- puzzle was hardly imaginative flickered across her thoughts, Aliza by this point knew far better than to underestimate Papyrus…and this time, she wouldn’t have a cheat sheet.

“Come Human. You must listen to the rules.” The skeleton cleared his throat and shuffled a sheet of papers he’d produced from somewhere, casting his eyes down and then over to the console which seemed to be in a state of not quite disrepair but mildly laggy glitchiness, control panel lights blinking erratically and occasionally flickering in what seemed a struggle to remain running. It made quite a bit of clanking and fan-whirring noises, with Papyrus even having to raise his voice a bit to be heard clearly above the cacophony.

More electrified floor? She dismissed the idea as 'likely not’. Papyrus appeared to have a bit more to him than simply a blustering proud nature and simple black-and-white ideas about good and evil and morality and where he stood on the spectrum of such.

“Dr. Alphys made up this puzzle for me.” he said, a sad sort of smile crossing his face, enough that it piqued Aliza’s curiosity. Yes, it fit with Papyrus that he would not take credit for someone else’s work, or at the least give credit where it was due. However there was something to that smile; wistful and nostalgic.

Maybe this Doctor Alphys person had been a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Yeah, she could see puzzle-loving Papyrus really falling for someone clever…but definitely not pining wistfully after a lost love. Maybe another sibling besides Sans or a lost friend or…

“…and the yellow tiles will make you smell like lemons which the Piranha fish do not like, however it will…ah, human. Are you not understanding my instructions? You look most confused.”

Berating herself mentally for romanticizing her human-eating captor once again, Aliza realized that in her foolish daydreaming, she had missed the beginning parts of her briefing on deadly puzzle instructions. Stupid, stupid girl!

“N…no, I don’t understand.” she lied in the hopes that perhaps Papyrus would take pity on her. If anyone might it would be him, and had he just said PIRANHAS?

The skeleton sighed dramatically, but with fairly minimal exasperation and relaunched into the explanation. Though she tried to pay attention this time, there had to be at LEAST twenty different instructions; timing and consequences and even ways of neutralizing or adding effects to each of the tiles. She soon found herself hopelessly confused and sure that If she remembered half of these instructions she would be lucky.

“Finally, the pink tiles do nothing and are safe.” Papyrus finished up. “Now, the order is totally randomized. Just remember your instructions and you may win the day once more! Onwards, Human! To…well, I will wish you victory just the same!” he bowed just very imperceptibly.

The only comfort left to her was that Papyrus was nothing if not fair. As with the last puzzle, there would be a solution. She clung to that desperate hope as the machinery hums and clicks increased while the tall skeleton fiddled with the the dials on the dialpad panel and the tile floor burst suddenly into a eyesore of a strobe of winking, dancing colours.

The machine hum grew louder and more feverish, reaching a whistle.

Then there was a bang and a blinding flash. Aliza wasn’t sure whether or not she was praying for the puzzle to be broken or not; on the one hand, there were just too many impossible rules to remember. On the other, Papyrus would be sure to have a backup and it might well be that the alternative was worse than this.

And then, the spots were blinked out of her vision and the dust cleared.

She stared at the randomized puzzle in disbelief, fighting back the urge to cheer and laugh as what threatened to come out of her was nearly pure, unadulterated hysterics. Against all possible odds, the majority of the puzzle was one long, direct shot walkway, clear across the grid comprised of almost primarily pink tiles. It was more than wide enough for her to navigate without even having to balance or worry about remembering what the red titles that sandwiched it even did. .

She started across, and then paused halfway to glance at Papyrus, expecting to see anger or frustration written across his face. Instead, there was just more sadness. .

She continued forward, even as she heard him mutter under his breath something that sounded suspiciously like ’…hasn’t been the same since…’.

She damped down the overwhelming urge to comfort him yet again and allowed him to march her on through the exit, deep into the now-swirling snowfall and whatever awaited her in the next deadly puzzle challenge.

As if the weather was sensing her foreboding, she knew somehow that whatever the last puzzle was, any luck or happy coincidences or providence that had blessed her thus far were more than officially at an end.

She was not entirely aware of just how right she was, but when ever was anyone aware of that?

“It seems that I have been japed this morning at almost every turn, human, but no matter, the third and final puzzle awaits you and this one…will be utterly bamboozling. Now there was a deeper edge of confidence to his voice that was not there before. Some of the high-notes had dropped away and Aliza’s fear increased. Papyrus had always been unnerving but even so, this was the first time she had felt any sense that he might forget himself, that there would be no chance of talking to him with rational words and pleas for fairness or understanding

“Human I’m afraid I must go on ahead to prepare the last puzzle. I am quite sure you will be fine on your own. Just for a while.”

The handcuffs that were around her wrists were dropped, and with that, the driving weather swallowed the skeletal form up.

“Papyrus?” she called, cursing herself for it. She was free. She could have run. Unless…that was what he was expecting her to do? Or perhaps it would be a major breach of trust; a deal breaker that would sentence her to certain death.

Perhaps that was, in fact the puzzle. Didn’t they do that with children and cookies or snacks or something in behaviour experiments? You could eat a cookie right away or wait patiently and get two.

Well if waiting here patiently would save her skin, then wait she would. Still, she hoped that whatever she was waiting for would not take too long, with the increasing cold already creeping up on her again after the brief indoors reprieve.

There was a beat of silence and then, as though amplified, the Skeleton’s voice blossomed from seemingly everywhere at once in the disorientating snowstorm squalling around her.

"Prepare yourself human, for the final deadly puzzle!”

Aliza spun in a circle, searching frantically in the dizzying white for the source of Papyrus’ voice, squinting for some landmark or point of focus.

“Wait! I don’t know where you are! I can’t see the puzzle! What am I looking for?” she squealed, terrified properly and lost beyond all reason.

She wasn’t sure how long she waited for a reply, but her panic increased as there seemed to be nothing forthcoming.

“Papyrus! Please!” She hollered again, putting all of her ability to project volume into her cry, so much so her throat hurt. “What is the puzzle!? WHERE IS IT?”

“Nyeh heh heh…” Papyrus’ laugh preceded the silhouette of his hulking form through the blinding white, but the relief from the sight of him was only temporary. Aliza knew something was very, terrifyingly wrong.

“Papyrus….?” her words came out hoarse and meek, but not from her previous screaming.

“HUMAN! The next deadly puzzle is…ME!”

Papyrus sprang into the air, adding another looming few feet to his already impressive ability to tower over the child. Aliza was left to cower, backpedalling in the snow as long, jagged bone shards whirled into the air, coalescing into a whirling dervish above her head, spinning and then slowing and drilling into the earth around her, driving up a wave of snow and permafrost and making the blizzard even more dense than it already was. The bones hemmed her on all sides, but they were not packed in like a barrier or even a fence. They seemed to be positioned in a circle still; a stonehenge of marrow and calcium.

This blizzard was not a part of Papyrus’ puzzle (or rather his attack, as this was definitely no puzzle) she realized. It was affecting his visibility as well. He’d spread the attack to locate her, trying to narrow the scope of where she was, to make her reveal herself…but had in doing so in such a grand way, given her a much needed hiding spot.

There was nothing here to defend herself with, she realized as she hunched close by one of the large bones, trying to somehow hide that heart from view which had appeared with the onslaught.

She could hear Papyrus growling and stomping over the driving winds, could imagine his hollow sockets searching in the tempest, the same way she was looking for the telltale flicker of red of his scarf as the impromptu game of hide and seek continued. Continue it would have to, as she did not dare face the ultimate question: If she did confront him head on, then what?

Whatever the little heart was, it was certainly no help. It had turned from red to blue when Papyrus had yelled his intent and she couldn’t explain it but it seemed to be weighing on her like an athlete’s training weight. On the other hand, she couldn’t get rid of it. Doing so would be worse than the end.

Maybe…maybe she could trick him into making some smaller bones…or one that she could use like…a bat or a club. …or, she remembered the way that those larger bones had drilled into the earth with their sharpened tips. Like…a knife.

What had the flower said? Eat or be eaten? But….but surely such a fate was cruel for Papyrus. Wouldn’t that be more suited to Sa–

“FOUND YOU! PREPARE YOURSELF HUMAN!” He’d managed to actually ‘creep’ up on her as she’d been wool-gathering, the howling of the wind melding with his thunderous gait and even doing so much as to blur his massive form from up this close. The shape of him and some of the distance was distinguishable and instinctively Aliza pushed out with her hands at the monster, sending herself ass-over-teakettle into the snow, only succeeding in transferring all the potential energy to herself, but ultimately putting some much needed distance between herself and Papyrus.

She had just enough time to get her bearings before he launched a second sent of bones, these ones small - too small to use as a weapon, but inching end-over-end along the ground, causing her to fight hard as she could against the increase in gravity employed against her. She was dancing in place as they criss crossed around her ankles. It was a struggle each time she jumped and so she didn’t see the long, cyan blue bone materializing out of the mist until it was too late.

It rammed into her with what felt like all the force of a freight train to her small body, and once again she was encased and doused by a wall of snow and dirt as she skidded down to the ground yet again, wiping at a hot patch by her eyebrow, a smear of sticky red coming away.

The follow up attack was barrelling right for her before she had enough time to do so much as orient herself and she let out a slow sob and braced herself for it to…go right through her with no more fanfare than if it had been Nabstablook, back in the ruins..

Out of the swirling depths, a peal of laughter rang out, high and amused and tinged with, well if Aliza had not been so desperate, she could have sworn it was…admiration.

“I WAS NOT AWARE THAT HUMANS WERE SO CLEVER! FIGURING OUT MY SPECIAL ATTACKS AFTER JUST ONE HIT!”

Aliza froze just long enough to realize that standing still was an impossibly stupid idea…until she realized that it wasn’t. The blue bones, they were harmless if she stayed still. Dodge the white, stay still for the blue. Okay.

Clutching that blue heart in her hands she stood, squinting into the swirling white and steeling herself. Walk, Walk, Blue, Stop, Right, White, Blue, Stop, Forward, Blue, Stop, and…Orange…wait. If blue was stop then Orange….

Praying that she was right she clutched her heart to her and ran at that orange bone head on, ripping the last white one out of the earth on her way.

She was armed.

She had a plan.

Get to Papyrus…maybe give him a head wound to match his brothers’.

She phased through the orange attack, barely allowing herself a moment of triumph in her single-minded determination to fight back against her tormentor and captor, the white bone raised and the heart suddenly bursting forward with a red light in her freezing free hand.

Fight, Fight, Fight and don’t stop until you’ve won!

The momentum of her forward dash, empowered by whatever strong red new power was bursting forth from her little heart caused her to ram, hard into something so solid she could feel the pain of smacking into it at top speed blossom up through her face, feel something small and hard rattle through her mouth before she managed to swallow it along with a rather disgustingly large mouthful of coppery blood, before she could stop it. There was no time to see what tooth she’d chipped or possibly knocked out as she was falling forward….down onto something hard and she received another smack in the mouth, drooling out more blood onto the white, hard, roun—so.not the ground.

Somehow, she’d managed to catch Papyrus by surprise, knocking him over by dint of more or less drilling her face directly into him . His long legs had caught her as he fell, being as tall as he was, and the second smack across her mouth had come from clipping her chin on his chest plate on impact.

She’d recovered first too, having much less of a way to fall while he was still looking confused and stunned, and even in the new found panic as to what to do next she knew why; once the teachers had took them skating at the community parks and rec centre and she’d fallen butt first onto the hard ice, which had felt like her whole body was on fire and numb at the same time. Papyrus didn’t even have an ass to fall on. Technically speaking.

She had only minutes. That bone she had been brandishing when she’d run into him was lying on the ground beside them, within easy reach.

Pick it up.

Pick it up NOW and bash his skull in.

Her fingers reached for it,.

Her arm swung up.

She was trembling, but he was still looking dazed and lost, drool leaking from behind those uneven, dangerous, ugly teeth.

Just bring it down once and then go to town until his skull crumbles into nothing and…

And…give Sans a real reason to be obsessed with heads.

It wasn’t a fear of Sans that stopped her, though she would admit that it was perhaps the first thought that crossed her mind. Rather, Papyrus had given HER a chance, ignited her own sense of justice and so…she owed it to him to do the same.

There was enough corruption down here without her adding to it.

Letting her hand drop, she picked herself up and ran forward into the blizzard. pressing forward and taking her still-blazing red heart along with the bone with her. That heart thing was so important. It told her things about the area. And for other reasons. Reasons that eluded her right now. But she couldn’t lose it. No matter what.

Even when it weighed her down

Perhaps if she’d been a child more exposed to video games she might have started to divine the reason for its’ presence sooner, but as she wasn’t, she could only put the pieces together as she came across them. By the time she realized that the snow was letting up, the magic bone in her fingers - probably far outside the realms of Papyrus’ conjuring reach she supposed, or at least hoped - had gone, leaving her to clench her hand tightly around nothing with a violent spasm. She worked feeling back into it, noting too that the heart had also disappeared from whence it came…

She marched on, only slightly distracted with tonguing the unfamiliar gap now in the front bottom row of her teeth.

Determined to put as much distance between herself and Papyrus as was possible, whether he was keeping his word or not, or if she had in fact won her final puzzle, Aliza clawed almost blindly through the fog until it broke and she stumbled as her feet made contact with solid ground instead of slippery snow. It was as though someone had flicked a switch, or drawn a line where snow ended and a light, faint drizzle began. The air was probably chillier than she thought it was, but it felt warm presently to her frost-ravaged body.

She staggered on a few feet before finally admitting she needed a rest of some kind, leaning against an outcropping of rock. Still no pursuit seemed to be forthcoming.

Aliza wasn’t going to win any gold medals as a future olympian athlete but outdoor activity, being the least expensive form of non-academic stimulation and entertainment available to her peers and herself, she was hardly unused to a good run. Of course, even the most spirited games of tag didn’t typically result in life threatening or painful situations. Sure, some kids didn’t get along but true bullying was fairly rare in their orphanage; no one wanted to behave in a way that would hurt their chances of potentially being adopted.

She was antsy to get moving again but took a few more calming breaths to be sure, and then, her heart leapt, finally not with fear but rather joy as she spotted it. She knew that light. It was a lantern-star thing!

She resumed her breakneck pace despite the burning in her lungs, running for it until she skidded to a halt once more. Almost right next to it was the absolute worst possible thing she could encounter.

The stouter skeleton was facing away from the lantern at a kiosk-like structure, seemingly staring off into space, while his fingers drummed an impatient-sounding clatter against the wood counter of the little hut. Aliza ’s mind worked furiously. If she waited too long, he could turn and notice her presence. If she underestimated him, she could get impaled before even reaching the lantern and who knew what would happen then?

Apart from her certain decapitation.

Swallowing down a spike of fear she decided to risk it. . It was just a game of tag. Just tag and this was running for 'home base’. Focussing all her attention on the light, she raced towards it, diving when she got close and YES! her fingers brushed it and she could feel that familiar swell of vigour, and some of her exhaustion leak away. She’d done it. Take that you creepy old skeleton!

The next instant she remembered that touching the light did not, presumably make him leave or give her immunity. Tremulously, she raised her head from her splayed out position on the ground to look at Sans who was now watching her with a bemused expression in his gleaming red eye fingers still scrabbling against the table top. Then, without warning or breaking from that same twitchy gesture his head was tipped back on his neck-stem, a deep, real belly laugh rumbling up.

Aliza half-expected him to wipe tears from his eyes, then honestly did imagine he might given Papyrus’ actual crying earlier.

“Oh hell..” he said at length, though he sounded a bit wheezy, as though he was struggling not to redouble his laughter. “Kid, I do like commitment to a bit.”

“What?” Alaiza said, halfway between ignorance and annoyance.

“The poor, poor little human thing you have going on there.” He waved the one hand that wasn’t supporting the non-damaged part of his skull carelessly, stopping the tapping.

“It’s not a bit!” Aliza said indignantly, temper getting the better of her, despite her precarious position.

No sooner had the words left her mouth then she clammed up, as if she could take them back.

She scrabbled to her feet as he began to move, and she began to back up as well, watching carefully his proximity, trying to estimate the reach of that axe, which she assumed wasn’t far from his person.

“Relax. It’s just about time for my legally mandated break, anyway.”

Aliza gawked.

“Hey, what’d you expect? We live in a civilized society here. Now I ain’t exactly UNION …”

Aliza resisted the urge to snort.

“C’mon kid, I wanna have a real heart-to-heart with ya. Get inside your head a bit.”

It took everything Aliza had not to react much more than back up a little, but Sans wasn’t eying up her neck. In fact, his gaze was hovering more around the spot where that funny little heart always appeared, the one that Papyrus (?) had made all blue for awhile.

Still she hung back. Sans was the last person she wanted to go anywhere with.

“Listen. Kid. Let me put it another way. I am not on a coffee break here. I’m on my lunch break. We need to have a chat and I want to eat. Now we can do this at Grillby’s or I can do this HERE.”

Aliza stepped out of the range of the lantern.

“S’what I thought. Anyway it’ll be fine. I know a shortcut.”

He stepped forward and she took a step after him. A moment later there was that peculiar noise again, the radio that had shorted out and then disorientation. She could have sworn one moment she’d been one place and the next she was somewhere else. But that couldn’t be right. She’d just gotten wrapped up in her thoughts while walking.

Like all of the buildings she’d seen anywhere in the Underground or whatever they called the place, the bar was decrepit on the outside, with sagging wood and a mucky puddly sort of base around the front steps. That was why, when Sans pushed open the door and strolled inside, she was shocked to find the interior most impeccable, clean, tidy and cozy in a way that not even Toriel’s front of Motherliness was capable of achieving.

With little other recourse whether she’d cared to do so or not, she allowed Sans to pick where they sat, which turned out to be two nondescript stools, front and centre of the bar counter.

“Hey Grillbz.”

The proprietor (presumably the eponymous Grillby…or maybe ‘Grillbz’, but Sans apparently enjoyed annoying nicknames) arrived through the kitchen, without much fanfare. Clearly, he lived up to his name, being a blazing ball of red and orange in the shape of a man with a face that bore a striking resemblance to a jack-o-lantern, yet with a molten dark lava scar carved into the bare shoulder of his upper arm.

Aliza tried not to stare at him, or his scar. In the case of the former, he was an uncommonly attractive fire-in-the-shape-of-a-living-person. If he’d been human he would have been hunched over a motorbike with his shirt off or something. Aliza remembered THAT day - back then she and Frisk had found it hilarious that people wanted to be photographed in such silly ways. Now, maybe she was thinking they were on to something.

Looking at the thing that seemed to be a scar was a distraction, but not a welcome one. She couldn’t help but notice that the igneous (Ms. Louisa would be proud of her for remembering that) rock that made up his ‘scar’ looked distinctively similar to the pattern Sans’ teeth would make if he opened his jaws.

That was strange too - it hadn’t escaped her notice that he never seemed to move his mouth to speak. Like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Papyrus’ jaw certainly worked fine.

She was so focussed on this that she never noticed the fact that Grillby was standing over her. He cleared his throat, which sounded for all the world like a bonfire crackling leaves.

“Um.” If she was honest the menu looked innocent enough. Burgers, chips…ugh, definitely not the black pudding, she knew what it was at home and if this was Sans’ favourite place, then NO THANKS. It was almost tempting to ask for a beer; where else would she ever get to try one? For all Grillby knew she was of legal age…but she also recognized that becoming less-than-completely alert would be a monumentally stupid idea given her present company. Scrambled eggs sounded good but again the thought of where those eggs came from gave her pause. Chips really sounded like the only safe choice.

“Chips, please.” she pointed to the item on the menu, but Grillby actually spoke up. Perhaps he was just a man of few words (she wasn’t even sure she knew WHAT she liked yet but this was not the right time to be attempting to discover it.)

“Very well. Sans?” Grillby nodded once and turned to his other customer.

“Burger and a side of scrambled eggs.” the skeleton grinned like he was delivering the greatest joke in the history of the world. “Food for thought.”

“Eggs are eggs.” the fire-man muttered in a tone that suggested that if he had eyeballs in those molten pits he called eyes, he’d be rolling them.

It took very little time for the food to come out, the smallest portion of chips that Aliza had ever seen in her life.

They seemed to be made of potato and she was doubly sure they were likely VERY expensive. She supposed it lent some credence to Sans’ claim that Grillby was a very business-savvy opportunist. Sans was drumming his fingers again, and she noted both that yes - he COULD open his mouth and second…hadn’t there been a seat between them a moment ago?

She tried to discreetly move one down and jumped when Sans set his food down and glanced at her.

“So kid, y’ever wonder how a monster gets corrupted?”

She didn’t have an answer and didn’t trust herself to speak, simply shaking her head.

She could have sworn the light in his eye-sockets winked out for the briefest second

“They kill. Forcibly taking one life to prolong their own, worthless miserable existence.”

He took a sloppy, disgusting bite of his burger and that /had/ to be ketchup-she would /believe/ it was ketchup. He turned his head to stare into it.

She moved down another seat while he seemed preoccupied.

“So. I promised myself that my brother. My awesome little brother would be protected from it. That he could keep doing what he was doing to keep everyone happy. Alive. That he would be safe. That’s why I have to get to the traps before he does.”

Somehow it was less of a shock that Sans knew that she had seen him than it was that he had ostensibly brought her out this this bar to talk about it like equals, that he even seemed…

No.

Even with this new revelation about Sans’ actions being even just the slightest bit more noble than his twisted nature seemed to suggest, Aliza was painfully aware of the creepiness that lingered about him like a bad smell. The sinister glitter of his baleful red eye-light had moved, lightening fast from a bitter sort of torment to a blinking, obvious warning beacon. Her fingers scrabbled at empty air as she realized she’d come to the end of the bar and she pitched dizzily back, bracing for an impact that never came.

“Whoopsadaisy…” Sans laughed, tone childishly mocking and word choice as carefree as if Aliza were a toddler, falling down after their first successful steps upright. There was not much time to process the situation or be indignant as much to her increasingly diminishing shock given all that had befallen her so far, Aliza found herself suspended in mid-air at an awkward, impossible angle to the ground.

Something flared blue in the air around her; similar to the mists outside but…the colour was different… and Sans’ hand was parallel to the floor. Now that there wasn’t a driving snowstorm around her, Aliza realized what it was. Sans was using the same magic that Papyrus had weaponized during their fight. The heart wasn’t anywhere around…why was that? Perhaps it, like everything else in this godforsaken nightmare was sleazy and unpredictable too.

He chuckled, tipping her up back into her seat and the instant she was firmly upright she hopped right out of that stool, and almost performed her second face plant into a skeleton in (an estimated) 24 hour period.

Just as easily as he’d convinced her to come with him or maneuvered her from one side of the bar to another in their creepshow game of musical chairs, so had he managed to position himself between her and the exit.

Now he was very obviously attempting to trap her.

He stepped forward, she stepped back, again, again, again until the back wall of the bar was between herself and Sans who was so close she could feel the undone teeth and tag of his hoodie zipper pressing against the fabric of her own thin shirt. She could hear her own shaking as she could do nothing but cower, her pounding heart and body trembling so hard the force of it rattled the bottles of liquor on the back wall.

Sans’ magic eye burgeoned deep red in its fathomless pit of a socket, almost as if it were emanating the source of the rolling mist from outside all on its own.

His grin widened, as he drew on that magic, expanding it into…

“No…” she whispered, staring in horror at the bone-axe. Her eyes whipped from side to side, searching for a way out., but Sans was stocky enough that his frame blocked the relatively narrow space between the side of the bar and the exit.

“No…” she begged, “Please, I… don’t…”

He laughed again, dark and sinister. “I told you kiddo, I do love committment to a bit.”

Aliza flattened her hands to the door, as Sans loomed, raising his axe up to bear. He seemed to be delighting in prolonging her fear and her hands clenched and closed around…a… A doorknob! She scrambled, not daring to believe her prolonged luck…the knob turned. Of course, it had to be the door to the kitchens!

It swung inward and the blade swung close enough to whoose by her chest as she stagged back with the momentum, wedging into the floor hard enough that Sans had to struggle to pull it free. He wouldn’t be stymied for long, as stout and short as he was, she had already seen how much power he could bring behind that blade.

And as she looked up, she almost wasted her precious moments of a head start with panic at finally taking in the sight of the kitchen. It was smeared with blood, and rust-covered knives. The ceiling was hung with long carcases with what appeared to be fishing line, but then there was the next row. All heads. Human and monster alike (though none that looked like Frisk…). Their skin was dulled with some kind of marinade and there were wrinkles and rigor mortis in faces too young to face that.

Papyrus’ guessing as to Grillby getting the heads Sans had collected for him was clearly, obviously and one-hundred percent true.

Aliza screamed, forgetting about Sans wresting his axe from the floor or how close she was to joining the poor souls on the wall. She screamed until her lungs gave out with air, for all the times she hadn’t screamed up until now.

Finally and only when her lungs were burning with lack of oxygen did she stop.

The fire monster looked up by way of response, observing the duo with a calm, almost detached

'are you quite done?’ sort of expression, setting aside a knife.

Still calm Grilly chose to nonchalantly stroll to the other end of the grill to block her path, despite the fact that she had weapons upon weapons in a kitchen to work with.

Maybe, maybe…she had one last hope.

She opened her mouth a second time, watching as Grillby reacted in the only noticeable way she’d seen thus far, a quick hunch of the shoulders, anticipating her shrill siren wail again.

Not this time. “PAPYRUS!” she yelled. Papyrus had told her to call for him if she was in danger from Sans. He could come in here and see what Sans had done, what Grillby had done, the bodies and the heads and the stolen meat and yeah, she had given HIM a second chance, but she could care less about what happened to this pair of jerks.

Unfortunately it took all of two seconds to realize what a HORRIBLE idea that was.

The corrupted magic in Sans’ eye glowed even more brightly, the rage suddenly coming off him in palpable waves.

Papyrus was not coming and Sans was all but growling at the nerve of her decision to try and weaponize his brother against him. It took no time at all for Grillby and the rather deranged skeleton to start boxing her back into a corner - and there was certainly no escape door back here….

“STOP! PLEASE!” Begging. What other choice did she have at this point?

Sans was laughing in a way that suggested he found the situation anything but funny. “You were going to HURT my brother.“

"But I DIDN’T!” Aliza squeaked, desperate now. “I didn’t hurt him! I let him go! I showed him MERCY!” She was speaking fast, trying to halt her impending demise. “He’s FINE. I didn’t even mean to knock him over!”

Sans grin intensified and his red eye got brighter still, if that were even possible. It was like looking into a laser pointer, bright and causing spots to appear in her vision, though she didn’t dare close her eyes. “Is that so kid?”

“Y were thinking about it… weren’t you?”

“But I didn’t!” she shrieked again I didn’t I didn’t!“ She was dimly aware of how desperate she sounded, like a convict pleading against the death penalty. Almost literally in this case…But what choice did she have?

"An’ maybe you were gonna bring him in here for a rescue mission, let see all about how I protect him, provide for him..don’t know anything about what’s good for him. Think you’ll get me taken out of the picture and leave him at the mercy of…maybe you. Poor, poor, filthy, nasty little human. All an Act. And don’t think I don’t know you can….undo things if you want to. Maybe the next time you will think a little harder hm? Maybe a reminder will help.”

What had he just said!?

Two hands came down on her shoulders, pinning her in place.

With Sans taking up so much of her attention, it had been easy to forget about the quiet, looming fire monster, his warm presence now causing blistering heat to rise feverishly down her back along with the equally unpleasant chill of fear.

Aliza struggled, but the broiling, uncomfortable body held her in place with with as little effort as he might trap a bug under a glass.

“I think I might like to…get a taste of those neat little perks. I’ve always wondered what it was like to have all the options on the menu.”

Sans tapped his non-axe dragging hand in a thoughtful kind of musing pose as though what he was talking about made perfect sense and not like total nonsense.

He tilted his head to the side, some of the rage and insanity gone, now apparently considering further

“Huh. Grillbz, M'sorry.” he said at long last.

Aliza did a double take.

Of all the things she expected Sans to do, apologize was last on that particular list.

He looked up at Grillby over the top of her head.

“I know you have a rule about bringing in outside food, but you know me, always had a knack for finding a crack in the rules…” he clacked a finger on the jagged tip of his hskull aperture, the wide smile returning.

It was the last thing that Aliza knew because he moved fast, too fast for comfort, too fast for her too her to process…

A hand wrenched her forward out of the firey grip and the relief of the relatively cooler air on her skin was barely processed as a horrible pain erupted from her neck, before darkness.

The body crumpled to the ground as the nervous system gave one final twitch

…Sans was not there a second time when she woke up next to the lantern…

Sans knew. Sans knew that she would be back here if she died. The thing at Toriel’s hadn’t been a drug induced dream or a coincidence.

She had…gone back in time. Or these lanterns were….fixed points in time. Or…alternate universes? Or different time lines?

No, that would mean that …no, she would wouldn’t remember the other things if it was different worlds.

So Sans had wanted to…

….whatever he was going to do with her body.

She knew exactly what he’d done or tried to do, but she refused to think of it happening.

Heh, hopefully she’d gone back in time before the bastard could have his cake and eat it too.

….great, his word play was rubbing off on her. That was a horrible joke, even under the horrible revelation.

On the other hand, the way was now clear, so he must have some purpose in letting her go.

And go forward she would.


End file.
